Virtual Group Fitness is a Great Way to Increase Health Club Membership
Gyms are usually full only during specific times such as early mornings and evenings. The rest of the time, the gyms see just a few people or none at all. For owners, it is a great disappointment to see people walking away from the gym just because they are full. There is also the issue of providing group training to just a couple of people during late mornings and afternoons as this is not economically viable. If you are a gym owner who is facing such problems, virtual group fitness can be a great way to counter them.
How virtual classes benefit your business
Virtual exercise classes involve recorded videos or live feeds that are offered to interested customers at a time that is convenient to them. You can just install a large screen, projector and speakers, and you are good to go. If your members come at times when there are no trainers available, they can just play the prerecorded video and perform the exercises themselves.
You can also accommodate more people during peak hours: If you have an extra room in your gym, you could have the members exercise there by observing the trainer in the other room. So, the virtual exercises classes can be a great way of retaining more members at a small one-time expense incurred on equipments.
You could reach you clients in their homes
For various reasons that range from time constraints to distance, people may not be able to make it to the gym everyday. Today, it is not expensive to have a software that lets you reach clients live in their homes. You could offer these services as a specific package. They can also be offered as additional services for times when members cannot make it to the gym. It can prov
e to be a good service where people can actually interact with the trainer from home and feel like they are a part of the group exercising in the gym.
As a gym owner, with experience, you would know that people who do not come for a couple of days to the gym due to genuine reasons, usually are lacking in motivation and then discontinue exercising as they break their routine. Virtual exercises can be of great help to keep such members on track and increase your retention rate.
Virtual exercising at home can also be targeted at pregnant and postpartum women who find it tough to come to the gym. You could have virtual exercises classes that are designed for such women and increase your memberships. You can also extend this concept to reach out to other Special Population groups. You can add value to your virtual group fitness program by offering nutritional guidance, fitness tools, calendar of workouts, progress tracking, and workout reminders.
The benefits of virtual group fitness
The main benefit is flexibility where you or your customers do not have to keep appointments. If a person opts for exclusive virtual group fitness from home, you can actually provide a discount as your space and equipments are not utilized; so, it is mutually beneficial. You also get to reach out to people that you would otherwise not be able to. For clients who cannot make it to the gym everyday, it is a great opportunity to be part of a professional fitness program.
Virtual group fitness programs are not without disadvantages
Accountability to the trainer is definitely one disadvantage. There is no one to actually push your members to do just one more rep, especially when they are exercising watching a recorded video; so, self-discipline is a must. Members would also miss the posture analysis, and they would have to make their own assessments. If your clients are expecting the same kind of feedback that they get in a live gym group class, they would surely be disappointed. Additionally, from a business perspective, unless there was an access record to virtual videos, keeping a track of how well and often your members are exercising is almost impossible.
One idea to make the virtual group training successful, you must schedule a regular live exercise class at least once a week. This would allow the trainer to track progress and give valuable instructions to your clients. It also keeps the motivation up thereby increasing the member retention rate.