Embrace the Future of the Fitness Industry

Embrace the Future of the Fitness Industry Feature::: Tomorrow is exciting for fitness! Here's how you can prep for the upcoming changes and growing trends in the fitness industry.The fitness industry has never been so exciting, and there is so much renewed interest in wellness and our collective desire to seek optimal health. The concept of a “traditional gym” has slogged it out for about 50 years, starting in community halls and evolving into big-box gyms, budget clubs and boutique studios. Adjacent industries—such as entertainment, health, athleisure, franchising, food and hospitality, social media and gaming—are investing money in our arena. The digital age is putting the health club in our collective pockets as fitness goes borderless. Indeed, technology is disrupting every industry, and we find ourselves sparring for the mindshare and money of a shared consumer. When fitness bifurcated into high-cost fitness facilities (boutique studios and premium clubs) and low-cost (budget) clubs, a new landscape was created. Boutique studios provided specialized, high-touch experiences and showed us how to elevate customer service to new heights. Budget clubs have proven that it’s possible to offer affordable fitness to the masses at breakneck speed, with excellent facilities and automated self-serve options. In addition to these “new rules,” digital, at-home options may be the biggest disruptors, with Peloton bringing the boutique fitness experience to the privacy of the home through a successful hardware/software subscription model. Franchising is also on fire. Where do you fit in? Fitness is the broad shoulders on which lifestyle sits, but we still have much work to do to keep our members and clients positively engaged. This article shines a light on current, exciting changes in fitness, and it offers tips on how to prepare for an even more exciting future. Embracing Technology and Being Human We can now map our runs, rate our workouts, close our rings and measure our sleep hygiene. Information used to be valuable, but now the power trend is the ability to mine data and predictively serve preferences through frictionless commerce. True progress, however, embraces human and machine. The fitness industry was slow to adopt technology, until budget clubs introduced automation and self-service to keep their head count and costs down. Boutiques use slick booking, payment and promotional platforms and in-studio, high-tech touches like heart rate tracking. Many brands have demonstrated that engaging a remote community based on livestreaming, leaderboards and data tracking is a thriving proposition. Meditation apps are popular, Apple tells you when to move, and Whoop™ grades your sleep. There is no magic pill suspending us in a state of optimal health, but we are moving toward a hyperpersonalized world where biometrics tells us what we should do, when we should do it and at what intensity and duration. Make no mistake, though: With the acceleration of machine learning, artificial intelligence and automation comes the opportunity to become more human. It’s time to focus on the things we are uniquely great at: being creative, solving problems, injecting emotion into experiences and being empathetic. There’s a lot of opportunity to make face-to-face interactions more potent. If you haven’t thought about how you’re going to use technology to take your fitness business to the next level—or keep it viable—now is the time. Partner with a new perspective; innovation comes from the edge. Many popular studio franchises flipped talent on its head and hired charisma first. The home-based subscription model that many predicted would be too expensive to gain critical mass? It’s now a success. Boutiques placed a per-experience-price on classes, proving that people would pay for group fitness if the experience was good enough. Vocal guidance apps, podcasts (and the power of storytelling), diagnostic tools and personalized beauty products all meet our needs for hyperpersonalization. What do your clients want and need? Fitness Industry Lifecycle Fitness is simply another service waiting to be packaged and presented to a primed group of consumers. We are a great industry, but we are not yet mighty. Adjacent businesses eclipse us in bankable value, and they have sat quietly, waiting for fitness equity to rise. Beyond the immaculately coiffured studios, very few brands have the foresight (or frankly the capital) to extend their experiences to travel and lodging, virtual coaching and wellness. It’s unlikely that we’ve done enough to outpace inevitable newcomers to our industry, but it’s not too late. When an economic downturn hits, cost-effective fitness delivery is ready. Are you? As any great CEO will attest, it’s about the quality of the question. So, what’s yours? What can you do to strengthen your fitness business, embrace disruptions, become more tech-savvy and create better experiences? Whether you are a big-box manager, a studio owner or a budding entrepreneur, consider the following tips.