Honolulu, Hawaii
Jan W.
Jan W. moved to Hawaii. He has lived on Oahu for more than eleven years and coaches everyone from busy professionals to professional athletes. All told, he has been coaching for 20 years.
About ZANE
We're Jan and Jan. Sports scientists, coaches and climbing partners since university. ZANE is what we've learned about helping busy men change, built into one app.
Jan W. & Jan B.Co-Founders of ZANE
Cologne, 2012
In 2012 we spent a year in climbing gyms in Cologne with stereo cameras, a body model we had built ourselves and one question: can the right repetitions turn clumsy moves into fluid ones?
We wanted to show that you don't need a coach standing next to you. Well-designed routes and enough repetition should do the job. So we built learning routes that drill specific climbing movements. One group trained on them on their own. A second group in another gym trained the usual way, with a coach.
Then we tracked every climber's center of mass in 3D and calculated how smooth and efficient their movement was.
The result
Both groups got better. The group that trained on our routes, without a coach, got significantly better.
That study became our diploma thesis at the German Sport University Cologne, Germany's only university dedicated entirely to sport. We graduated as sports scientists in 2013. Without knowing it, we had written the blueprint for ZANE: repeat the right behavior in the right way, and it stops being hard and starts running on its own.
You don't need someone watching every step. You need a system built well enough to repeat every day.
After university, our paths split across the world.
Honolulu, Hawaii
Jan W. moved to Hawaii. He has lived on Oahu for more than eleven years and coaches everyone from busy professionals to professional athletes. All told, he has been coaching for 20 years.
Cologne, Germany
Jan B. stayed in Cologne and opened his own personal training studio. He trained clients one on one, taught more than 3,000 hours of group classes and, like Jan W., coached people on nutrition.
Years later we met again in Cologne and did what coaches do: we compared notes. Which methods worked, which tricks our clients actually kept, and how much time we both lost tracking their habits on notepads and checklists.
We kept coaching the same handful of habits. The hard part was always the daily repetition until they stuck, exactly what our thesis had been about.
So we decided to give our clients an app. Their phone is always with them, which makes it the best support there is for building a habit. They see their progress every day, and we see where they need help.
Founded 2024
We founded ZANE in 2024. Before it reached the app stores, about 150 test users worked through version after version, and we rebuilt whatever didn't work for them. Along the way we found that men we had never trained in person did just as well with it, once we adjusted a few things.
AI made the last piece possible. ZANE's coach is built on our methods, our notes and the research behind them. It answers your questions at any hour, from a photo of a restaurant menu to what to buy at the store or why a habit works. It's the closest thing to having one of us in your pocket.
Our favorite part of this work is watching men change. A guy who skipped breakfast for years now starts his day with protein without thinking about it. A guy who restarted his diet every Monday strings together week after week.
Seeing which habits click, and why, is the most exciting coaching we've ever done, because the app shows us patterns we could never see one client at a time.
And we're just getting started. Our list of ideas for ZANE is long, and every new feature has to pass the same test as everything else: does it make the next habit easier?
We only give advice we're convinced of and have lived ourselves. Men and women differ in physiology, and often in what they want from food and training. So we decided to do one thing properly.
ZANE is built for how men think and live.
Co-Founder and Head Coach
"Most men don't need more discipline. They need fewer things to think about."Read Jan W.'s articles
Co-Founder and CTO
"The best plan is the one you still follow on a bad Tuesday. That's what I build for."Read Jan B.'s articles
Jan W. decides what goes into ZANE. Jan B. decides how it works. Everything else we do together.
ZANE isn't for everyone. If you want a 30-day transformation, there are plenty of apps for that.
We're for the men who are done starting over.
Most of the men we've coached weren't athletes with time on their hands. They had demanding jobs, families and too little sleep. What made the difference was a simple system, repeated until it ran on its own. Talent and willpower had little to do with it. You don't need to be special to make ZANE work. You need to start with one habit.
How ZANE works
ZANE starts you with one habit that fits your life, such as more protein at every meal. Once it sticks, usually after about a week, the next one unlocks and your list grows. The coach answers your questions any time, from a restaurant menu to a rough week. Try it free for 7 days.
Find your first habit
ZANE is based in Honolulu, Hawaii. Questions, feedback or a story to share? Write to us. Your message comes straight to the two of us.
support@zane.team
Before you go
Take our free guide with you: what the trend gets right, what it gets wrong, and the 5 easiest fixes for men who already eat their protein.
97% of American men don't eat enough fiber. Guys who finally got their protein right often eat even less.
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