… and I am not sure I will ever go again!
Wow, how fantastic was the Easter Bank Holiday weather in the UK? I managed to get some time out on the bike, which included: a 10-mile family bike ride with James in the trailer; a 7-mile ride taking James to the park and back; plus a 25-mile off-road ride in Swinley Forest (which would have been closer to 35 if someone hadn’t kept losing their brake pads en route!!!).
Whilst on one of these bike rides, I was thinking – I haven’t been to the gym in nearly 2 years! This coincides with a number of factors:
- James is 2 years old in July
- Becoming a one car household in a bid to save the planet and money! Geek warning – did you know it costs me and estimated £15 to travel (and park) the 15-mile round trip to the office?
- I now have two mountain bikes and a commuter bike
- I cycle and walk whenever I can
- The appalling sense of customer service my wife and I received from a local Premier Health Club
Now if someone had told me 2 years ago that I would still be fit, healthy and sane without going to the gym, I would not have believed them.
Ever since I bought my first set of York Dumbbells from Argos when I was 13, I have had a regular exercise routine. This evolved into gym workouts when I was 16 and started working at Brackley Leisure Centre (hearing Morrisey ‘Everyday is like Sunday’ and Aztec Camera ‘Somewhere in my heart’ still reminds me of cleaning the changing rooms and listening to the one CD that we had in the building!). And continued into becoming a personal trainer, starting training business, opening health clubs, going bust, then working for LA fitness before leaving the industry altogether.
Every where I went, I either had access to the gym or a joined a gym. But I can honestly say, I am not thinking of joining one again … well not in the immediate future … what’s more, I think my personal experience is the sign of the many challenges to come for the health club industry!
I love the health club industry and the people in it. It gave me a wonderful life for many years and I enjoy catching up with people at the various events that I continue to attend. I frequently keep abreast of industry events and news. It has come a long way since the early years . Facilities and equipment are definitely better. The FIA has moved on leaps and bounds. But more change is required!
The same issues have been talked about for years – penetration rates, member retention, differentiation, programming, community outreach, tackling obesity and quality of staff. Just to illustrate, I think membership penetration rates were around 4% when I qualified with Premier Fitness (Norman Basson was still a boy!). Well, 17 years later, it is now 12% (I’ve just read the Health Club Management Handbook 2011). That isn’t really a step-change in growth or impact.
In about the same time, Sky Television has sparked an industry and alone has generated 10m subsribers with an annual revenue per user of £541!
In much less time than that, China Mobile has reached 600m subscribers (7.5m new subscribers in one month alone).
Facebook has over 500m active users.
Different industries I know, but benchmarks none the less!
The industry needs something more game changing than just the arrival of budget clubs … it needs to continue to break out beyond the walls of the facilities … it needs to continue to innovate … it needs to look at pricing models more cleverly … if it really is to get more people, more active, more often.
Interestingly, I might join a facility/entity if it affordably allowed me to: shower and eat breakfast after my morning cycle commute; store my bike safely whilst I worked; service my bikes every now and again without having to lug them in a car to some cycle shop miles away; buy or hire home exericse equipment so I can workout in front of my TV at home; provide safe, welcoming and educational child care facilities that my wife felt comfortable leaving our son in; meet up with fellow mountain bikers before and after the weekend ride to use the showers and have a drink; do my food shopping online whilst I exercised before picking it up when it I was finished; have a decent sports massage rather than a stroke and tickle; meet up with people in the local business community; feel part of the local community and meet more like minded people more easily; influence my local council/environment to make active living easier!
Does anyone out there think the same or is it just me going mad?!
adampscampbell 
Great post Adam; I really like the ideas of the club as a club… a place for people to meet and go off and do other things, or provide services that help active people be more active, more often, etc
Posted by guygriff | April 27, 2011, 8:25 amGuy, thank you. Something else has not changed … my thinking!!! If I was organised enough, I’d be able to dig out a concept paper that I wrote in 2000 called ‘fitness without walls’ it had pretty much the same comments! Perhaps it’s time I helped someone do it!!?
Posted by adampscampbell | April 27, 2011, 8:51 amHi Adam
I have read your blog from Guy’s retweet. I agree the fitness industry needs to be offering something for the sports people out there. Gyms are for gym people who want or need to train in that kind of environment. And then there are the crowd that want to do something with their fitness, the likes of you and me and Guy.
I have just opened a personal training studio in North London, N4 (www.n4training.com), purely for personal training. Not exactly the same as your Fitness without Walls, but it is along the lines of an open place and a friendly environment.
I’m about to start a runing club and also provide a place where other runners can meet beforehand and shower after for a small fee. Running is my thing, but it could also work for cyclists too.
I would be interested in chatting with you further, if you are.
Alison
Posted by Alison Graham | April 27, 2011, 3:39 pmGreat post Adam, when I left the UK for Norway four years ago, the thing I missed the most is the cycling club and mountain bikers I would meet up with. If a local health club could have scooped us up as a group, we would have spent a fortune on energy bars, drinks and beer on a Thursday night. Some really good points made
Posted by george smith | April 27, 2011, 3:42 pmYeah, just joined a gym in Singapore and it’s more of the same. In as much as they offer, it’s good, but there’s no ability to look outside the box.
Time for some real innovation, speaking from my own current experience how about bringing under one umbrella: a website similar to WLR.co.uk for logging exercise, food etc plus weight loss tips; pick up (or we deliver) your healthy meals for the week; gym package or any combination of the above Now you tell me this is not missing a trick?!!
Strange thing is there’s a few companies here in Sg offering confinement (post pregnancy) meal delivery service, then of course there’s a lot of gyms but nobody pieced the whole thing together….
Posted by Rachael | April 27, 2011, 5:17 pmAlison, thank you. A mate of mine South of the River runs some running clubs, perhaps you should collaborate.
Rachael, exactly!!! All the pieces of the jigsaw exist, it’s just waiting fir someone to do it … my money is on Virgin with Fitness First chasing their tails … or a consolidator!
George. I agree, we’d spend a fortune … especially if a bike shop was attached!!!
Posted by adampscampbell | April 27, 2011, 7:37 pmA lack of subscription growth could be down to a disconnect between services used and subscription costs; with people feeling they need to use the gym to get their monies worth, rather than paying for what they really want. A low subscription and small fee for individual classes/ activities would allow more flexibility of use/ choice. Most gym users will feel they pay too much for what they use.
Daily working life and evenings seem more time pressured than ever so a gym needs to offer more than just exercise. Better food and bar areas are needed to encourage group activity and foster a club mentality with strong links to other local clubs. Convenience stores could be integrated to get the essentials for dinner as well as fitness nutrition.
Personal training is dated and less social. More informal hints and tips can allow people to help each other. By encouraging group/ more social activity will make the gym more of a meeting place which will then feed the bar and subscriptions.
Shift focus on PT and pure fitness to selling a lifestyle with more/lower subscriptions and small cost at point of use. Encorage groups/ social. Integrate convenience shopping.
Posted by Ian varney | April 27, 2011, 8:41 pmIan, you are right. I’ve been banging on about pricing (to those who will listen … and that’s not many) … people need more flexible choices rather than peak or off peak … all other industries have differential pricing!
Posted by adampscampbell | April 27, 2011, 9:25 pmHi Adampscampbell,
Have you checked out our service at http://www.payasugym.com? It would be great to get your feedback / suggestions / thoughts on it.
It is quite a simple service. You create a free account which gives you an online wallet which you can top up with credit that you can spend on gym use – a bit like topping up a pay-as-you-go mobile phone. This means you can now use the gym as and when you need to and will only ever pay for what you use. Available in London at the moment with 120 gyms to choose from so far, and we are expanding to Manchester and Birmingham this summer. In the month of May alone we have had over 100,000 customer searches for gyms in London and this is growing rapidly so it seems we may have struck a chord with a certain section of potential gym users!
Gyms are all different prices based on location and facilities (addressing an earlier point made on this topic), plus every pass you buy is at a significantly discounted rate to the price you would pay on the door OR is exclusively available as pay as you go through payasugym.com (for places that are normally members only). When you buy your gym pass it is sent to you by email and SMS and you just provide the unique code to gym staff at reception to gain entry.
It targets people who want real flexibility and/or only want to go to the gym a couple of times a month (perhaps because they do other forms of training like running and cycling but want to add some complimentary training) or people that travel a lot and can’t commit to a membership in one place. You will never get bored of one gym as they are all very different depending on your needs and mood. Hopefully something for everyone?
Also available as a free iPhone application to make the service really mobile.
Additionally customers leave feedback on their gym experience which means you get completely independent advice and recommendations from other users to help you decide which gym you want to use. Peer recommendation has a massive influence on peoples buying decisions and we are trying to provide a platform to enable this as part of our service.
Would be really great to get your views / feedback / suggestions….
Posted by Neil | June 20, 2011, 11:19 amFirst of all, thank you for taking the time to comment … of all (the few!) blogs that I have written, this theme seems to have sparked the most comment. Secondly, congratulations on doing something different.
For a long time, I have been arguing that the fitness industry should challenge its pricing model and look to other sectors in terms of how it might do this. Amongst, subscription based services, mobile phones are the obvious candidate. With a mobile phone you have a choice of type of phone, contract length, pay as you go or monthly package, why can’t the fitness industry do the same.
Take the following example, if someone who wants to join to lose weight, say 2 stone, then sign them up to the appropriate deal, workout what it would cost them (or rather be worth to them) to lose that over the next 6, 12 or 18 months and created a package for them based upon that need. If they are a non-experienced exerciser they might need a greater deal of support in the early days in the form of personal training, perhaps 10 sessions in the first two months (call it a £500 handset payable over the term of the contract), they would then need to have the appropriate monthly package to suit their planned usage (call it frequent user up to 4 sessions per week £40 per month and £8 per visit over this). I think it is this type of solution that the industry needs to move towards.
Continuing on the telcoms theme, payasugym.com is like a telcoms reseller, like the Phone Co-op (a client of mine). Providers effectively offer a bulk buying discount to the resellers to allow them to make sufficient margin to operate. It is tough but doable if you are able to carve out a niche target market and to ensure that overhead is sufficiently low to make profit. What seems to be important is having that clear point of difference in service or flexibility of use, which people will often pay a slight premium for. So my questions for you are:
– what is your real motive for doing this? make a difference or make money?
– what is the niche market that you have defined for the service you provide?
– how well do you understand the characteristics and behaviour of that market place?
– what do you offer that no one else can?
– what exclusivity arrangements do you have in place with your suppliers (facilities)?
– what value does this have for your customers? what would they be willing to pay?
– are you charging enough?
– is your business model the right one? for example, might a consumer owned business (co-operative be a better option?)
You have created an innovative intervention that is definitely part some future world and have made a good start doing it. I encourage you to continue to establish the whole. Please feel free to contact me directly adamcampbell@telospartners.com (or connect with me on Linked In profile id 870168) if you would value discussing this in more detail.
Posted by adampscampbell | June 23, 2011, 11:39 amI’m loving http://www.h2bikerun.co.uk
Posted by adampscampbell | May 26, 2011, 11:59 amAdam
You need to get a group of people together, build the perfect model and then get out there and develop the future of lifestyle clubs.
I’d be happy to contribute.
Posted by John Garner | November 26, 2011, 8:49 pm