Category: Blog

I was surfing around on the Internet the other day when a jarring Club Industry headline caught my attention: “American Physical Inactivity Reaches Six-Year High, Club Memberships Increase.” It doesn’t seem to make any sense, but according to a recent report from the Physical Activity Council (PAC), a group made up of IHRSA and five other sports and manufacturer associations, it is the case that 82.7 million Americans (28.3 percent) were physically inactive in 2014, an increase of 0.7 percent from 2013. It is also the case that health club memberships have grown by 18.6 percent since 2008, with the total number of health club visits in 2014 surpassing five billion for the second year in a row. Health club members checked in an average of 103 times in 2014, an all-time high.

What does it all mean? The data, based on nearly 11,000 online interviews carried out with a nationwide sample of individuals and households, suggest that the country’s fitness-related crises — obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and the like — are here to stay, and perhaps only getting worse. But at the same time, more and more people are joining health clubs and they’re visiting their clubs more often.

It can be hard, with statistics, to make meaningful interpretations and arrive at some kind of truth. But it seems safe to say, at the very least, that the news from the Physical Activity Council is both good and bad. As Tom Cove, PAC chairman and president and CEO of the Sports and Fitness Industry Association put it, “While we can look at [the physical inactivity] number in a negative light, I would like to use it as a wakeup call to not only our industry but the rest of society. It’s time we put our time and resources into industry initiatives and national campaigns to increase physical activity.”

In other words, the number may be alarming, but we can use it to start instigating change. And there’s no group better positioned to do so than the fitness industry — especially given that other statistic, the steadily growing popularity of fitness centres and health clubs. Joe Moore, IHRSA President and CEO, explained it this way: “These numbers demonstrate the important role health clubs play in helping more and more Americans improve their overall health and wellbeing.”

Thus, while the two statistical figures seem contradictory, they’re really sending the same message: Venues that enable and promote fitness and opportunities for exercise are a vital part of the equation when it comes to keeping the country healthy, and we, as an industry, need to step up our efforts to reverse the trend toward greater physical inactivity.

In practical terms, maybe this means it’s time for your club to become more involved in your community and to actively seek out members of the community who lack physical activity. Programs that create incentive for such people to try out your facility and that then support their efforts to sustain a more active lifestyle could work wonders—and could lead to benefits for both them and your club. We spend so much time focusing on physical activity, but maybe what we need to do now is shift our attention to physical inactivity.

As winter is a time for hunkering down, it seems appropriate that I haven’t been able to get myself to the gym for several weeks now; all I want to do is curl up under a blanket. I have, however, managed to find a few exercise podcasts and videos and start working up a sweat in my home office. I know I’m not getting quite the level of exercise I need: no equipment, no trainer, no instructor, no fellow sufferers. But it’s hard to kick my own rear in a gym-ward direction when I know I can get at least some sort of workout at home.

I’m not the only one. I have a couple of friends who swear by the stationary bikes in their living rooms; one guy I know has an entire weight room in his basement. And recently the Wall Street Journal reported that, while sales of traditional home fitness equipment have declined in the past few years, and while the percentage of Americans with gym memberships has pretty much held steady, sales of lower-priced fitness items, like yoga mats and workout DVDs, have increased. The fact is that sometimes fitness centres are competing for customers not only with other fitness centres, but also with those customers’ personal spaces. What can be done to pull people — yes, people like me — away from the yoga blocks in their closet or the medicine balls in their bedroom and into the gym?

The key is to offer benefits that outweigh the benefits of working out at home. The way I see it, working out at home has three major benefits: It saves money, it saves time, and it’s oh-so-convenient. But I know that going to the gym instead of exercising at home would get me to my fitness goals faster. There, I can use equipment that much more efficiently burns fat and increases muscle than anything I can do at home. More importantly, I can call upon the expertise of trainers and instructors who can show me how to position my body just right or explain why I’m at risk of injuring myself if I’m performing reps incorrectly.

But the best thing, the thing I most lack at home? External sources of motivation. No matter how great the podcast I’m streaming might be, it’s nothing compared to the rush I get when I’m trying to run faster than the guy on the treadmill next to me, or the comfort I feel when I mess up a Zumba move and a sympathetic classmate tells me not to worry about it, or the simple satisfaction that comes from not being the only one, all alone, trying to keep myself healthy and live right.

So your task as a health club owner or manager is to remind me why I’m better off at the gym. Have your fitness concierge (you have one, right?) send out emails to folks like me to tell us what the gym can offer us that we can’t get at home. Post videos on social media that show me other people who managed to get themselves to the gym that day. Even ask one of your trainers to call and check in on me — you can bet that being held accountable by someone I’m eager to please is going to finally get my butt out the door. I know I’m saying the onus is on you, but that’s really how it is. You got the gym up and running; it’s your job to get me coming to it.

Keep in mind, too, that you actually can compete directly with some of the home-based workout benefits. Given that convenience is a big factor, you can offer special deals to people who live close to your facility — within a few blocks, say, or within a mile or two. You’re convenient for at least some people. Make it your business to make sure those people know it. And given that saving time and money is a big factor, you can consider offering winter discounts and designing (and widely advertising) super fast classes, ones that get members in and out of the gym in under thirty minutes.

It might be hard to lure people like me out of our houses before the crocuses start blooming and the birds start singing, but it’s not impossible. Make it worth our while.

No one likes rush hour. The crowds, the slowness, the general irritation of having other people block your way — given the choice, most people would go far out of their way to avoid it. In fact, in a recent study by The Retention People, researchers found that the one complaint members of top-performing clubs have most often is that the clubs are too busy at peak times. This, of course, is good news for clubs: Too busy equals successful. But you have to balance that kind of success with retention. If your members become fed-up with crowded spaces and inadequate facilities, they might choose to leave and you’ll be stuck watching your retention rates sink.

Unfortunately for members, many of them do not have a choice about avoiding rush hour. They work regular business hours and tend to families, and that leaves few options for hitting the gym: before work, during lunch, or after work. In other words, rush hour. So what can you do to improve the rush hour experience for your members?

Interestingly, The Retention People study asked members a single question: On a scale of 1 to 10, how likely is it that you would recommend your health club to a friend or colleague? Respondents were categorized according to their ratings: “Promotors” gave their clubs a rating of 9 or 10, “Passives” a rating of 7 or 8, and “Detractors” a rating of 0 through 6. Respondents also were given the option of explaining their answer. Researchers then used scores and common phrases to identify issues. As far as the rush hour problem goes, some of the words detractors most commonly used were “crowded,” “changing rooms,” and “equipment,” in explaining their reasons for responding negatively. If you’re looking to improve rush hour, these are the areas you should focus on.

• Crowded: Assess the space in your facility. In particular, watch the flow of traffic into and out of the facility during peak times. Do customers wait in line to reach the front desk? If so, increase your front desk staff or consider whether you need to make staff changes. If employees are not the issue, is there another way to increase efficiency up front? Can you install automatic card readers (if you don’t have them already), so members can flash their IDs and go? What about other spaces in the facility? Where are the crowds? How can you even them out?

• Changing rooms: Assess your changing room areas. First of all, do you have the resources to expand them? If not, can you do a redesign? Ideally, of course, you want changing rooms to offer plenty of locker space, wide aisles for a free flow of traffic, and enough showers, bathroom stalls, and dressing-room spaces that customers never feel like they’re being made to wait. If your changing rooms are cramped or inadequate and reconstruction isn’t an option, can you designate secondary changing rooms (such as family rooms) for specific groups during rush hour only? Can you hire more attendants to ensure smoother operation?

• Equipment: Again, you need to assess your situation: Do you have enough desirable equipment — and enough space for it — that members never feel like they’re waiting for the treadmill, medicine ball, stationary bike, or whatever other item it might be that they want to use? If not, can you acquire more of the most sought-after pieces of equipment? Can you impose a rush-hour only time limit on those pieces?

It’s going to be impossible to give everyone everything they want during rush hour. Some members will have to wait sometimes. Some will have to grudgingly deal with time limits. Some will get fed up and leave. But if you can reduce the chances of losing members, it’s worth trying to do so. One other interesting thing to note about The Retention People study: Promotors at top-performing clubs — that is, members who rated the likelihood of their recommending the club to others very high — said that what they like about their club is the “fantastic staff”, “great service”, and “friendly team.” If reducing the rush hour crunch is too challenging, then you can always compensate with supreme customer service. That goes a long way toward solving every problem.

We’ve talked before in this space about going green: making small changes to everyday practices in order to create more eco-friendly athletic and fitness facilities. We’ve talked about making big changes too: about using sustainable building materials and developing lighting, heating, and cooling strategies that leave smaller environmental footprints. One thing we haven’t talked about, though, is laundry. That’s why I was glad to see a great article about athletic laundry facilities on Athletic Business’s website.

The article points out the complications of working at an athletic laundry facility: the use of multiple fabric types in sports uniforms (today’s uniforms typically comprise five different types); the need to have a constant supply of towels available on demand; the expectation that workout clothes and other gear will be clean and ready whenever needed. Given the high-pressure environment, it’s not surprising that ecological efficiency is not the first thing on a laundry room’s agenda. But the laundry room is a place where a huge footprint can be left. From massive amounts of water, to massive amounts of energy used to power the water, to the chemicals required for those complicated cleaning jobs, athletic laundry rooms present big challenges to the “go green” effort.

So, if you run an athletic facility — or a fitness center with a laundry room for processing copious towels — what can you do to strive for greater eco-efficiency?

Start with the water. As the Athletic Business article notes, using programmable-control machines that automatically choose appropriate water levels for different wash jobs reduces human error in water consumption. Also, filling machines with appropriately sized loads makes a big difference. Most people underload, Gary Gauthier, a regional sales manager with the Pellerin Milnor Corporation, told Athletic Business. “This practice,” he said, “wastes water, chemicals, energy, and time.” What’s an appropriate load size? “I encourage that frontloading washer-extractors be filled until there’s a football-sized opening at the top of the basket,” Gauthier said. Other possibilities to consider: washers that have shower-rinse features along with bath-rinse features, washers that use polymer beads or other new technologies in place of most water, and washers that allow you to reclaim the water used for rinsing.

Next, think about chemicals. Taking steps to conserve water is just the beginning. Choosing the right chemicals also goes a long way toward reducing environmental impact. Cold-water chemicals that clean fabrics effectively save on costs associated with heating water. Ozone, a chemical less harsh than chlorine and equally effective in smaller amounts, disappears as it cleans and loosens fibers for softer, cleaner items; it also has the added benefit of conserving water because it requires less to get the job done. Whatever chemicals you choose for your facility, laundry experts recommend building up a good working relationship with your chemical representatives. “A knowledgeable chemical rep who can visit the laundry locally and solve cleaning issues is an ideal resource for any athletic facility,” Gauthier told Athletic Business.

Finally, review your laundry facility’s operational efficiency regularly. With continually updated uniforms, new styles of towels, changes in practice gear and equipment, and other frequently changing variables in the laundry room, it’s essential to keep your laundering practices up-to-date. Otherwise, it’s easy to keep cycling through routines established in past years (or even decades) without pausing to consider whether those routines are still relevant. Reviewing your operational efficiency allows you to analyze data related to towel loads, water usage, chemical optimization, and much more, and to make decisions related to your analysis. In other words, don’t let the laundry room operate on autopilot. Take charge of the controls, and you’ll find yourself with a more sustainable facility — and maybe even cleaner clothes.