Guest Author: JoAnn M. Eickhoff-Shemek, PhD, FACSM President, Fitness Law Academy, LLC Introduction This blog will describe the types of legal liability risks that health club owners/managers can face due to an employee’s negligent conduct and effective risk management strategies that can minimize those risks. Large companies and healthcare organizations have risk management (RM) departments that employ experts who develop and implement RM strategies to protect the company or organization from all types of risks including legal liability risks. Because most health clubs do not have a RM department, the owner/manager has the overall responsibility to minimize legal liability risks [...]
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As a gym owner, you should always be looking for the next great thing to drive your business forward. That elusive “whatever” that will give you a competitive advantage, offer tangible benefits to your members and fiscal benefits to your bottom line. You’ve probably looked at programming, explored technology, perhaps even considered tweaking your branding. But if you really want all those benefits, you should be looking at Medically Directed Fitness. Let me explain. Medical Fitness, at its core, is about health risk management and partnering with the local healthcare community. Medically Integrated Fitness is how commercial health clubs can [...]
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There are two types of clubs growing in our economy: boutique centers, and low-cost, bare bones gyms. Many of those in the middle - think Gold's Gym, 24-Hour Fitness, New York Sports Club, and Town Sports - found refuge in the bankruptcy courts as COVID-19's shutdown ravaged their business models. So what can you do to ensure your gym's future in this difficult market? One method is to create a vertical within your facility by hiring personal trainers with nationally-recognized, specialized certifications. Expanding this way boils down to two questions: Who do you want to attract as a customer and [...]
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Does it make sense for your gym to expand into medical fitness services? The answer is - it depends. On one hand, your health club benefits from a growing base of business built off of referrals from the medical community, but, on the flip side, you can expect a large upfront investment requiring time, money, and space. You would be jumping into a growing trend led, in part, by the American College of Sports Medicine's Exercise is Medicine initiative launched in 2007. This powerful move by a leading organization is an attempt to reset the conversation on the importance of [...]
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You would be hard-pressed to find a more polarizing and controversial modern exercise trend than CrossFit. Known for extremely intense workouts that combine core concepts from weightlifting, cardio, gymnastics, and even yoga, CrossFit is a "love it" or "hate it" experience. Regardless of your personal feelings on the topic, we're here to examine whether CrossFit as a business model could benefit your gym in the long run, or whether you should steer clear and stick to more traditional methodologies. Since every gym owner has different needs, financial situations, and business overhead to consider, this decision is often a personal one. [...]
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You can't say too much about certain things in this business and one of them is certification. Also beyond that, or perhaps before it, you want to consider which professional organization is the right one. There are plenty of good organizations such as the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM), which provide relevant and effective qualifications. You should be pursuing advanced certification on an ongoing basis and encouraging your staff to do the same. In the competitive fitness and gym management industry you have to keep moving along just to keep up. Rather than taking up a lot of space [...]
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Dirty Work Continued... As a business owner there's a plethora of rules regulations and certifications that you have to navigate through. Of course, on top of that, gym ownership comes with its own specific headaches. When you own a business of any description you quickly find out that there are all kinds of tasks that seem to have been designed to distract you from your purpose and the mission of your enterprise. As always, I try to avoid the controversies and politics of ownership but we all have to deal with them. So, my discussion point here is how to [...]
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I believe that one of the keys to a happy life, a life well lived is developing an attitude of gratitude for the things that make life worthwhile and rewarding. I think it was Tony Robbins, whom I first heard say that, it's stuck with me ever since. In celebration of the arrival of the holiday season I would like to share my list of things for which I am truly grateful, and that I am giving thanks for this year. My List of Gratitude 1. First, I am very thankful for a career that helps people and promotes health. [...]
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You'd be forgiven for assuming that each and every professional working in the health and fitness industry today was of the same caliber, but you'd also be very wrong indeed. In reality, the differences can be night and day which for clients and customers can mean the difference between fast results and no results at all. So with this in mind, here are three questions clients are more than likely to ask any prospective personal trainer before they agree to sign up: What Qualifications do You Possess? Qualifications often amount to no more than words on paper, but in this [...]
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Why It is Vital to Hire a Competent Manager Hiring someone to manage your fitness center is one of the most important decisions you will make regarding the business. Management staff can make or break your business in a relatively short time. Your manager is your representative; your main customer service person as well as the person who manages your employees and makes all pertinent decisions when you are not there. It's no wonder that many fitness facility owners are reluctant to hand over the reins of their business to a manager. Your facility manager needs to wear a lot [...]
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The Typical Turnover Rate for Personal Trainers One of the biggest problems facing a gym owner or manager is that of finding and keeping a team of top notch personal trainers on board. Gym members expect to have access to personal trainers as part of the membership package and in most cases are willing to spend a fair amount of money to pay for training. The hard part is that while thousands of men and women attend school and become certified personal trainers each year, the turnover rate for this career field runs between 80 and 90% on average. Why [...]
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