Not In My Box | The Fitness and Coaching Podcast · Caffeine and Kilos | Fitness and Coaching Culture w/ Danny Lehr

Are Specialty Classes Worth It? Wes Piatt on Silver, Parkinson’s, Kids, and Barbell Clubs

December 9, 2025·1 hr 3 min·3 clips

Wes says the no shuffle club is about restoring 'functionality of life' for Parkinson's and stroke clients.

1. Not In My Box | The Fitness and Coaching Podcast uses Wes Pyatt and Danny Lear to debate specialty classes, barbell clubs, kids programs, and CrossFit silver. 2. Wes Pyatt is an affiliate owner, coach of coaches, and leader of the no shuffle club, while Danny Lear is a gym owner and co-founder who has run a six-week snatch course. 3. The episode asks whether specialty classes are essential coaching tools or just passion projects that complicate the business. 4. Wes says specialty classes work when the coach has the knowledge, the time, enough members, and a way to improve the main group classes. 5. He argues that teaching specialty work forces coaches to learn faster because 'we learn the best by teaching other people.' 6. Danny and Wes joke through examples like a run club, a burpee book club, and a 2010 CrossFit throwback class with board shorts and Vibrams. 7. They use those jokes to separate classes with real demand from classes invented because someone thought the schedule needed more options. 8. Wes says a specialty class should be a passion project, not a scarcity response to slow revenue or empty numbers. 9. He says a coach who does not actually enjoy the class will eventually start dreading class three, four, and five. 10. The conversation turns to ongoing barbell clubs, and Wes says an ongoing weightlifting club built more culture than a one-off course. 11. Wes describes teaching his daughter colors through kilo plates, starting with the white half-kilo plate and the red 2.5-kilo plate. 12. He says that same daughter later deadlifted 155 pounds for a set of five at age 11 and weighed about 90 pounds herself. 13. Wes and Danny argue that kids are already built to pick things up, climb, and move, pointing to toddlers and even uncontacted Amazon tribes as examples. 14. They reject the idea that a seven-year-old will 'blow out their back' from lifting, and they compare that fear to a child in a grocery cart trying to lift a watermelon. 15. Wes says the no shuffle club for Parkinson's and stroke clients is about 'functionality of life' and becoming less of a burden to family. 16. He tells the story of a woman who went from needing help out of a car to walking into the bank and later walking 2.5 miles with her grandson and climbing three flights of stairs. 17. The tone stays conversational and unfiltered, with long back-and-forth exchanges, jokes about socks, Hawaiian shirts, and backflips, and very little formal structure. 18. The episode moves like a judgment-heavy interview where both hosts keep pushing examples until the point is clear. 19. People running CrossFit gyms, kids programs, or senior classes. 20. Listeners wanting polished business theory without gym-floor stories.

As heard by us

Specialty classes are treated as real retention and marketing tools, not just extra programming.

Specialty classes come across here as more than filler; they are treated as both a retention path and a marketing lever. The discussion stays grounded in the real work of running a gym: kids' classes in six-week blocks, summer one-week camps, adults, and the firefighter program…

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

Press play if you're wondering whether specialty classes are actually both retention tools and marketing tools.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from Not In My Box | The Fitness and Coaching Podcast