Stop Going to Fitness Classes, Jake Gyllenhaal’s Personal Trainer Says

• Celebrity trainer and gym owner Jason Walsh hates the fitness industry.
• He told insiders he believes most people do it to make money, not to help others.
• Group workout classes, for example, are not individualized and can be dangerous, he said.

Jason Walsh is a gym owner and celebrity trainer who hates the fitness industry. In fact, he hates the word “fitness” and everything it stands for.

“I hate the word ‘fitness,'” Walsh told Insider. “For me, ‘fitness’ encompasses everything I don’t like in the industry. ‘Strength’, ‘conditioning’, ‘health’ and ‘wellness’, they mean more to me and are more valuable. I am people who want to make money using this industry.”

Walsh started lifting weights around the age of nine and graduated from the University of North Carolina, where he qualified as a strength and conditioning coach. He started his career working with athletes before leaving professional sports and moving to personal training in Los Angeles.

“Jessica Biel was one of my first customers,” Walsh told an insider. Since then, he has worked with celebrities such as Jake Gyllenhaal, Brie Larson, Matt Damon, and Bradley Cooper.

Walsh has now worked in the fitness industry for 30 years and is the founder of Rise Nation, a workout studio that offers VersaClimber classes with Jake Gyllenhaal as a client. Rise Nation has four of his locations in the United States, as well as branches in the Philippines and Australia.

“Rise Nation started almost a decade ago, and it was just a passion project,” Walsh said. “I never wanted to go into boutique fitness.”

Walsh’s main complaint is that much of the fitness industry is designed to make money, not help people.

“There’s a lot of potential in the health and wellness industry right now, but unfortunately a lot of it is just bullshit,” Walsh said. “They are trying to make money off of people.”

Forget group classes — customized workouts are the key

Walsh said he founded Rise Nation because he was “upset” by what was happening at many fitness studios.

Walsh said he doesn’t encourage people to attend most group workout classes because workouts that don’t take into account an individual’s body, injuries, and mobility can lead to injury.

“There is a one-size-fits-all mindset in the industry, and that approach really hurts people,” Walsh said.

Just sweating, getting your heart rate up and hurting your body isn’t an effective way to train, he said. But he believes this is what many trainers and fitness instructors do to make people think they’ve had a good workout.

Ideally, you should work with a personal trainer who will assess your movement and body, and tailor your workouts to increase strength and fitness while avoiding injury, says Walsh, and this is what he does with his clients. is what we are doing to

Walsh is training his customers for resilience and longevity, he said. “The fitness industry uses these things to lure people in and make money, but they don’t always do something for people,” he said.

Avoid overly complicated health and exercise advice

Walsh believes the fitness industry overcomplicates things and people in the fitness industry don’t want the public to know that it’s actually easy to get in shape and stay healthy.

Sure, it takes dedication and consistency, but it’s not too complicated, says Walsh.

“What I do is very simple,” Walsh said. “It’s disgusting and boring.”

But it’s not always easy.

“It’s not magic,” he said. “You have to do the work. You have to get uncomfortable and get used to the discomfort. Just keep doing it over and over and eventually you will see progress.”

Walsh gave an example of how strong Brie Larson has become over the years of training.

“Brie Larson, she was a girl who couldn’t open a water bottle and suddenly she was doing her own stunts and getting hurt,” he said.

Some aspects of the fitness industry are designed to confuse people in order to keep selling diet and workout plans and products.

“I don’t think there’s any integrity in the fitness industry,” Walsh said. “People are gullible and try to eat it up, but I’m not going to join them.”