Ah, history … it repeats itself. If you’re old enough to remember Gold’s Gym before it turned into an aerobics studio, then you’ll appreciate the irony in the American College of Sports Medicine’s “Worldwide Survey of Fitness Trends for 2023” results. It originally published in the January/February 2023 edition of the ACSM’s Health & Fitness Journal. Now in its 17th year of publication, the Worldwide Survey identifies 42 top-rated trends gleaned from past World Survey lists and emerging trends. Selecting the trends are editors representing corporate, clinical, community, commercial and academia. The list is then sent by Survey Monkey to more than 125,000 individuals involved [...]
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What your fitness business should do in 2022. At first glance you might think that I've already covered this topic for the year. But this is a little different; it's intended to be a straightforward list of resolutions for the New Year. I want to make this a post about looking forward and in the last post on making plans there was a lot of content that I left out simply because there was too much good stuff for one post to cover. So, this is a list of what a fitness business should resolve to do in the New [...]
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GHsKOL5wZk Reduce paperwork this New Year by implementing a gym management software system. How Does It Look? What Does It Mean? What Needs To Be Done? It's a great time to draw a line under the past year by looking at what was good, what was bad and what looks to be changing. I'm not talking about Taylor Swift or politics here, but specifically in the marketplace that you serve as a small gym owner. I've been writing about a lot of different topics this year and it's worth a review to remind readers of what's been covered and some [...]
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Technology Moves The Needle in 2019 Can you believe it's almost 2019 as I write this? In the traditions of the Gym Insight Blog, that means that it's time to look at the American College of Sports Medicine's Worldwide Survey of Fitness Trends for 2019 to mark the holiday cheer. The Top Five Trends Worth Celebrating Wearable technology Group training High-intensity interval training Fitness programming for older adults Body weight training The year promises to be an exciting one as all the pieces slot into place, and clear directions come to light. The survey and other sources agree that fitness [...]
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Continuing Trends in 2018 One thing is sure about the summer of 2018; fitness businesses aren't going to disappear anytime soon. While it's technically possible to do all of your workouts from home, that is not the choice that people are making this year. What's hot in mid-2018 is the human connection. The word of the season appears to be "continuation" as wearables continue to lurk in the background, HIIT continues to grow in popularity, and group classes continue to fill the need for social engagement in the lives of many. Meanwhile, the spread of IoT connected equipment may influence [...]
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It's getting close to the end of the year once again and that means it's time to look at what's on the horizon for 2017. Any new fitness trends that help you recruit customers and earn more revenue have to be good things, right? Well, yes, of course! So, the trends that continue to grow include group activities that are perfect for studios or any floor space, such as dance classes, yoga, and other group activities. The rising fitness trends appear to be the things that get people together to share experiences; these include dance, team training, and other small [...]
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Trainers Adopting Tech Could Create New Potential A recent American Council On Exercise (ACE) Survey, quoted by Club Industry Magazine turned up the conclusion that trainers need to be more aware of the potential offered by wearable technology. This refers to the wristband devices such as FitBit that record all your activity throughout the day, from your sleep patterns, to heart rate and calorie expenditure. Well, my natural reaction to that was "don't we all?" However, the point here was that the spread of wearables is making consumers curious about the potential in the data. According to the survey, they [...]
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You know, we're in a resolutely business-to-customer service industry, are we not? So, you might be forgiven for thinking that attending trade shows would be a waste of time. Don't you believe it for a minute! It may be individual customers that you serve that earn your revenue but it's the relationships with your peers that keep you going. Your business is built on the relationships that you form within the industry and between professionals that makes the best B2C service possible. Let's take a look at trade shows (IHRSA 2015) and what they can do for you beyond being [...]
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The Fitness Experience Companies like SoulCycle and Spartan Race are focused on the experience you have during training or as goals to meet for preparatory training. Other systems like CrossFit demand much of your body and even with proper supervision by certified staff you can easily strain muscles and joints in practice. SoulCycle is a great example of a fitness business carving out a niche because it defies the trend away from spinning classes, which are apparently in decline. By matching charismatic instructors and style with what might otherwise be a limited format the company has created an enthusiastic base [...]
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Disruption is that thing that happens when an established way of doing this or that, or your network suddenly discovers that it has new competition, from out of nowhere, overnight. Technology is disruptive because it is evolving and emerging so quickly. Customer service is disruptive because most companies do it so poorly and, when done well, it generates such a powerful connection with the customer. Ideas are disruptive because they are the source of all innovation and change. As the pace of change continues to accelerate it become harder to anticipate changes and at the same time more desperately important [...]
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What Is Lean Body Mass Of Your Gym? Marketing is a funny business, funny as in strange but not so much hilarious. You pursue what you think is the best market solution and then it turns out something works better. What do you do? Go after the new opportunity? Ignore it and stick to what you know? How does anyone know what the right answer is? Marketing strategies are changing rapidly for the modern small business. The entrepreneurial concept of the lean startup has taken hold and there are some awesome principles and lessons that can be learned from it. [...]
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Breaking Down Boundaries 2014 saw changes and much activity in the fitness industry and new some trends. The hope of new things brought us the excitement of things like getting down in the mud with Spartan Fitness. CrossFit stepped up to be the exemplar of the aggressive type of training that only truly fanatical fitness enthusiasts understand. New gyms popped up, studios rode the trends and some big names ebbed and flowed in their fortunes. The combinations of fitness and digital will continue to throw up unexpected and tantalizing opportunities. The importance of the digital component of any business is [...]
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It never hurts to look back at the predictions of the past and look at where the trends are leading at the present moment. I recently posted about the latest trends that were published by the American College Of Sports Medicine (ACSM). So I figured it might be appropriate to go back and look at how things are coming up from the view of the International Health, Racquet, and Sportsclub Association (IHRSA). Long time readers of this blog will remember that I posted an article about their trends for 2013. Now that we are through 2014 effectively it seems like [...]
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OK so it is about time to start looking at the trends for fitness in 2015 and the ACSM has released their most recent survey of club owners. There were not a lot of surprises but there are some interesting conclusions from that report and some other things that come up elsewhere that are really worth taking a look at. The trends for High Intensity Interval Training, bodyweight training and an increasing demand for trainer professionalism all seem to be holding course and continuing onward. It's like there is no real change from last year but that is sometime how [...]
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Fitness trends have had lots of ups and downs that are related to culture and fashion. But there is also an influence on trends that comes from the innovations of technology. Still it's hard to read the tea leaves out beyond a year or so, as the apparent trend today can quickly show itself to be a fad that disappears overnight. In the gym business we always have to keep a lookout for what is coming because it can determine the capital investments that we would make and nobody wants to take six months to refurbish for the latest thing [...]
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