Apr 10, 2023 · 1h 5m · how-i-built-this
Orangetheory Fitness: Ellen Latham
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gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
In this episode of How I Built This, host Guy Raz interviews fitness entrepreneur Ellen Latham about how she rebounded from sudden job loss in her forties to engineer a science-based interval workout and co-found the multi-billion-dollar global franchise Orangetheory Fitness in her fifties.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. Guy holds 38.9% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Guy as informed peer 2.1 Guest teaching 1.2 Guest disagreement 0.2 Guy pushing back 0.6
speaking balance: gold is Guy, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 15:47 Rejecting aggressive boot camp framing
Ellen firmly rejects Guy's suggestion that she used tough-love, drill-sergeant coaching, stressing that she explicitly barred the word 'boot camp' from the Orangetheory brand.
Hardest push from Guy ▶ 35:30 Pushback on high equipment expendituresGuy directly questions Ellen's business logic, pointing out that buying 10 treadmills and 10 rowers instead of cheap ballet bars was financially risky and 'insane'.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 31:16 Educating host on EPOC and metabolic intervalsWhen Guy suggests weightlifting alone is superior for fat loss, Ellen delivers a masterclass on exercise physiology, explaining oxygen debt and homeostatic cellular recovery.
Guy holds their own ▶ 2:18 Host cites academic startup age demographicsGuy dismantles the conventional Silicon Valley myth of young 20-something founders by citing Harvard Business Review and Bureau of Labor Statistics data showing the average founder age is 45.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Guy as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Guy pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Podcast Promotion: The Great Creators with Guy Raz | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Guy Raz frames the episode around academic data from Harvard Business Review and the Bureau of Labor Statistics about founder ages. Ellen only appears in brief teaser clips. Host-side knowledge is demonstrated via historical examples of older founders. | |
| Growing Up in Niagara Falls with Coach Calandrelli | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Guy prompts Ellen about her childhood in Niagara Falls and contextualizes the era with Title IX in 1972. Ellen details her upbringing as an Italian coach's daughter in a warm, collaborative dynamic. | |
| Early Fitness Industry Days and the Aerobics Craze | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Ellen describes early gym fads like vibrating belt machines and slimnastics before science entered group fitness. Guy engages nostalgically with early aerobics trends. | |
| Moving to Florida and Working at Bonaventure Spa | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | Guy inquires about Ellen moving to Florida with no job and getting hired as an exercise physiologist at Bonaventure Spa. Ellen explains hand-drawing workout cards with stick figures. | |
| Coaching Philosophy, Personal Strength, and Life Changes | 2 | 2 | 2 | 0 | Guy asks if Ellen coached with tough-love whistle-blowing aggressiveness. Ellen quickly clarifies her supportive philosophy, noting she refused to let Orangetheory use the word boot camp. | |
| Williams Island Spa and Celebrity Fitness Programs | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Guy and Ellen discuss her dream job managing Williams Island Spa and organizing celebrity workout retreats. The conversation is easygoing and narrative-focused. | |
| Bringing the Spinning Phenomenon to Florida | 2 | 1 | 1 | 2 | Guy probes into how Ellen got fired from Williams Island Spa after secretly partnering on a spin studio. Guy presses on whether she kept the outside venture quiet from the owners. | |
| Starting Home-Based Pilates and Mid-Show Break | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Ellen details launching home-based Pilates, borrowing money to buy 10 reformers, and adapting one-on-one Pilates into group classes. Guy asks about the mechanics of stabilizing muscles. | |
| Designing the Science-Based Metabolic Interval Workout | 3 | 4 | 1 | 1 | Guy suggests weights burn more fat than cardio alone, prompting Ellen to break down excess post-exercise oxygen consumption (EPOC) and heart rate interval training. Guy points out that interval training was not fundamentally a new theory. | |
| Launching Ellen's Ultimate Workout in South Florida | 2 | 2 | 0 | 2 | Guy challenges Ellen's business decision to purchase capital-intensive treadmills and rowers instead of cheap ballet bars and mirrors. Ellen explains testing the routine in parking lots and calibrating intensity to avoid client vomiting. | |
| Connecting with Franchise Veterans Jerome Kern and Dave Long | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Guy explores how Ellen met franchise veterans Jerome Kern and Dave Long through a client. Ellen admits her initial apprehension toward the concept of franchising. | |
| Rebranding to Orangetheory and Opening the Pilot Studio | 2 | 1 | 0 | 2 | Guy asks how Ellen protected her intellectual property and equity when partnering with franchise experts on the pilot studio. Ellen credits good legal counsel, trustworthy partners, and intuitive signs. | |
| Integrating Heart Rate Technology and Individual Tracking | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | Guy asks about introducing Polar heart rate monitors and compares their feedback loop to Peloton leaderboards. Ellen clarifies that the system is calibrated for self-competition rather than peer ranking. | |
| Early Franchising Hurdles and Refining the Three Ps | 3 | 2 | 0 | 2 | Guy points out high fitness studio failure rates and asks why early franchise locations struggled. Ellen explains pausing growth to refine the three Ps: people, processes, and program. | |
| Defining Executive Roles and Global Expansion | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | Guy explores the division of labor across the founding trio and how rapid global growth altered Ellen's day-to-day life. Ellen describes herself as the artist alongside a manager and an entrepreneur. | |
| Weathering COVID-19 Disruptions and Post-Pandemic Rebound | 2 | 1 | 0 | 1 | Guy asks about managing nationwide pandemic studio shutdowns and whether the business was at existential risk. Ellen discusses pivoting to virtual, post-COVID rebound, and accommodating aging bodies. | |
| Relentless Learning, Core Passion, and Honoring Her Father | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | Guy asks Ellen to weigh luck versus relentless drive in her late-career success. Ellen shares her commitment to intentional learning and her father's guidance on pursuing genuine passion. |
Statements from this episode (22)
Latham: The fitness industry operated without scientific basis for decades
“There was no science to fitness for many, many decades, but women, they came in, they joined that membership, and it gave me my first job in the fitness industry.”
Latham: Jazzercise and early dance aerobics were unscientific fads
“Then they started to get a little bit more organized when Jazzercise started pulling together kind of dance aerobics in more of a structured format, but nothing ever based on science. You know, it really was this kind of trendy fad type of stuff, particularly …”
Latham used heart-rate training with spa clients in the late 1980s
“So when the clients came in, I would do like sub max cardio testing, that type of thing on a bike usually to see where they're at. I then gave them some information of what they should train at heart rate wise. So I was doing this way back and then give them a…”
Orangetheory rejected 'boot camp' branding to avoid drill-sergeant fitness culture
“When we created Orange Theory, I told the guys, please, let's not have boot camp in our name, because I did not like that.”
Latham: The vast majority of people do not naturally enjoy exercising
“Fitness and exercise isn't something that people skip through the tulips and want to do, at least not the masses. You know, you've got some that are innately love exercise, but it's not like a massage.”
Latham claims she brought indoor spinning to Florida in the 1990s
“I literally brought spinning to Florida.”
Latham: Shift momentum during setbacks by focusing on what is working
“So there's a sports psychologist theory called momentum shifting, and you can momentum shift up positively or down negatively. So, you know, your team's losing, your players are not performing. Instead of focusing on what's not going right, Focus on what they …”
Latham: Certifying bodies discouraged group reformer Pilates when she pioneered it
“No one was doing Pilates with 10 machines. Absolutely not at that time. No one, a matter of fact, when I went for certification, they kind of poo-pooed doing in a group. There's no way you can do this in a group, you gotta correct people too much”
Latham repaid a $38,000 Pilates equipment loan within four months
“I think the whole thing cost about 38,000 dollars that he loaned me. And I bought them right out, and I put them in there... And it exploded. And I paid Nick back in four months.”
Latham: 12 to 20 minutes at 80% max heart rate boosts metabolism
“If you do at least 12 to 20 minutes of that in your workout, your body has to repay that debt. So over the next 12, 24 hours, the human cells, your body is working harder to bring it back to that homeostatic state. So that is what is changing your metabolism, …”
Latham: 20 minutes of high-intensity cardio matches 90 minutes of jogging
“Because what you can do in 12 to 20 minutes of getting your heart rate over 80%, you would have to go jog at just a steady state pace for an hour and a half.”
Latham: Orangetheory Fitness's oldest member is 95 years old
“Our oldest member is 95 years old in Colorado, and, you know, people can do the workout.”
Latham: Co-founder Jerome Kern previously owned a region of Massage Envy franchises
“They were big in the Massage MV world. He owned, you know, a whole region of Massage MV.”
Latham: The name 'Orangetheory' refers to the anaerobic heart rate zone
“I think it was Dave who came up with orange theory, because of course the theory is you need to get your heart rate. In that anaerobic zone, 12 to 20 minutes, and that's how the name came about.”
Latham: Scaling boutique fitness requires depersonalizing the operating model
“You know, if you're going to duplicate this, you have to find ways that you're going to be able to do it and it not be about Ellen. So interestingly enough, in the early days, they basically said, just so you know, you can't coach here. You can't show up a lot…”
Latham: Orangetheory prioritizes beating personal records over peer leaderboards
“Our emphasis is competing against your last best performance. You know, you're only going to have so many people that are always on that leaderboard. We offer that. We put that on there for some people who like that, but our emphasis is working against yoursel…”
Latham: Orangetheory temporarily halted franchising to refine its internal processes
“We stopped franchising. We worked on our processes. We worked on the program, the training, this type of thing, and then we reopened the franchising concept, and that really worked well for us.”
Latham: Orangetheory split leadership across workout design, management, and franchise expansion
“So I consider myself like the artist. So the artist is the one I created, right? The art of the workout. Then we see like Dave Long as the manager. He manages the business. He's the CEO, and Jerome is without a doubt an entrepreneur a thousand percent. His con…”
Raz: Orangetheory grew from one studio to 400 in six years
“Like you opened the first location in 2010, right? By 2014, so four years later, you've got almost 80 studios. By 2016, you have 400 Studios in six countries and 40 states.”
Latham: All 1,500 Orangetheory studios closed during the COVID-19 pandemic
“We had 1500 studios open and 1500 studios closed.”