The Post-Pandemic Fitness Product

 As consumer behaviours change, so the product offered at gyms and fitness studios must also change to keep up with expectations. Dr Paul Bedford reports.

As part of our ongoing research into, and monitoring of, the health and fitness market around the world, earlier this year we conducted a fascinating piece of research into how consumer behaviours have shifted pre- to post-pandemic – and what this means for the product offered at gyms, clubs and studios.

Before I dive into the implications, let me quickly run through some of the behavioural changes we’ve witnessed.

First, membership lifetime is down, whether you’re a big box operator or a boutique studio. If that doesn’t apply to you, I’m absolutely delighted. It’s certainly the case for a large proportion of the operators we’ve both spoken to and worked with.

Second, people are working out in more, and more varied, locations. As a result, pay-as-you-go is increasingly favoured over one regular monthly membership for most – but crucially, not all – consumer segments. More on that in a moment.

Third, visit length is up as consumers use clubs not only to work out, but also to work in – their sociable alternative to working at home in a new era of flexible working.

Fourth, as online fitness has exploded – and clubs limit gym floor support and personalised advice – younger generations in particular are looking to influencers rather than clubs for programming and workout advice.

Fifth, many consumers have found they like some of the pandemic-enforced measures, such as gym floor workout booking.

Sixth, consumers who joined mid-pandemic, motivated by improved health and immunity, haven’t stuck around.

So, what does all of this mean in practice?

Focus on family

The big one: data shows a significant growth in family membership sales since the pandemic. That’s great news for operators, as retention data also shows families stay longer than couples, who stay longer than individual members.

In fact, one of our customers sees just 4 per cent of his family memberships cancel each year, and then it’s because they’re moving house.

This is, however, only the case where clubs offer something for each family member. That doesn’t have to mean activities the whole family does together, but there do have to be activities for every generation. Get it right and our conversations with parents show that, even if they stop using the club themselves, they don’t cancel their family memberships because their kids have made friends.

Yes, it does place a demand on the business to schedule kids’ programming at times when parents can be a taxi service. However, home-working reduces that pressure somewhat, as many parents can now work from the club while their children take part in activities. It’s arguably a form of active childcare!

My advice to public sector operators in particular, where many diverse activities already exist but where these are, for the most part, currently sold separately: don’t limit family memberships to the gym. Bundle everything together and sell all-embracing family memberships that include all sorts of exciting activity options.

Capacity concerns

Gym floor flow and bottlenecks are an emerging concern, driven I believe by two key factors that are nothing to do with total number of members or overall gym capacity.

First, resistance equipment with integrated technology means working in – taking it in turns to do a set – isn’t feasible, because the programme runs for one person and builds in rest periods. A queue builds up.

Second, a number of online influencers are now advocating extended strength training. I’m talking 10 sets rather than the usual three or four, and it’s leading to severe bottlenecks in strength and conditioning areas in particular. I was at the gym the other day and one group of lads occupied one piece of resistance equipment for the whole hour I was there, each doing 10 sets.

It’s important that clubs regain control here, both through policing the gym floor – I don’t like that term, but it makes it clear what I mean – and through programming, so operators once again become the influencers.

Booking vs bottlenecks

Where overall capacity is a concern – and our customer base includes university gyms where this is the case, with 6,000 members joining every September and not all leaving at the end of the academic year – then pandemic measures can prove valuable.

Advance booking is one, not only for classes but also for gym floor workouts. Customers tell us that where they’ve implemented this, exercisers are more respectful of the equipment and more likely to tidy up afterwards; they know their name is down against a specific station or gym floor space. They also tell us it makes it much easier to manage and staff the gym.

Of course, it can be hard to enforce this when members have previously enjoyed open access: one operator told us 50 per cent of members wanted gym floor booking, 50 per cent didn’t. However, for areas of potential congestion such as the aforementioned strength and conditioning zones, booking could be a good strategy.

Choice of language

Our data shows that those who joined a gym during the pandemic had largely left again 10 months later. Little surprise, you might say. The clubs kept closing, people didn’t have a chance to form a habit, and what sort of first impression did social distancing in the gym make anyway? And of course, I agree with all of that.

However, I can’t help but also question how compelling health really is as a motivator of sustained activity. People value health when they’re ill, but not so much when they’re well – unless it’s in the middle of a pandemic.

Health is a goal with no end: a lifelong ambition with markers that can be hard to measurably shift. Meanwhile, we know people struggle to predict their behaviours beyond six months.

People need smaller, shorter-term milestones. I also believe they need health wrapped up in exercise, movement and quality of life, which means we must take a good look at the language and terminology our sector uses. Health and wellbeing might be buzzwords right now, while fitness and physical activity could be considered respectively off-putting and vague. However, I’ll tell it how I see it: ‘health’ on its own isn’t enough to encourage people to use the types of facility we currently have.

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