Tag: Business Advice

At the climbing gym I frequent, there’s a man whose left arm ends in a stump. He’s a veteran who lost his hand in Iraq. I know how hard it is scaling those thirty-foot walls with all my limbs intact; watching this guy, I can’t help but feel humbled and awed. He does it with no special accommodations. He just figures out what will work for him, and up he goes.

Indoor climbing is especially flexible in this way — the whole point is to do what you have to do to get to the top, no matter what particular challenges you might be facing. But, what about other, less universally approachable sports or exercises? What about just watching sports? How can we make participating in sports, working out, and being a fan in the stands more accessible for anyone who wants to take part?

There are a few things to consider as you gauge your facility’s accessibility and think about what changes, if any, to make. First, there’s the ADA, or Americans with Disabilities Act. Enacted in 1990, this law requires public places and commercial facilities to comply with guidelines that allow for wheelchair accessibility and other disability considerations. Facilities constructed before 1990 are not required to meet the specific stipulations of the ADA — such as that wheelchair spaces be at least 36 inches wide, with equal, adjacent space for a companion — but such facilities are under obligation to remove existing barriers. And any facility refurbishing its space must bring it into ADA-compliance.

So, for example, when Hampton-Dumont High School in Hampton, Iowa, decided to replace its fifty-five-year-old wooden bleachers recently, it had to create a new deck with room for six wheelchairs, plus companion seats, and a ramp. The project’s total cost was about $20,000 — but the alternative, building an entirely new stadium, would have cost the school at least a quarter of a million dollars. The lesson here is that changes you make to bring your facility into ADA-compliance, whether you run a gym, niche fitness center, or sports venue, need not cost a fortune. The money you spend will pay off. In Hampton-Dumont’s case, the school forged a better relationship with the community after the reconstruction because now no one was shut out. In the end, more tickets were sold at events.

If you’re not ready to refurbish, there are other steps you can take to make your facility more welcoming of people with special considerations. If you’re a gym with regular exercises classes, consider the possibility of designing a wheelchair class. You’d need to hire an experienced instructor and make sure the room where the class will be held is completely accessible. Also consider hosting workshops about exercising with a disability, and see whether you can create areas in your free-weight, cardio, and machine spaces solely for wheelchair users or others who need particular physical accommodations.

In addition, think about how you can make your commitment to inclusivity known. No matter what kind of facility you run, the more you spread the word about your accessibility, and the more you make it known that you welcome all kinds of members, the greater your standing in the community will be, and the more chances you’ll have of attracting an untapped segment of your local population.

Overall, you want to think in terms of being an ally to folks who are differently abled. As an organization dedicated in some form or other to physical activity, you bear a particular onus: how to enable physical activity for everyone. When it comes to issues of accessibility, gyms and sports facilities have a chance to shine.

For a few years, my son and I loved going to Bucca, a pizza place in our neighborhood. The food, first of all, was excellent and affordable, but what we liked most were the friendly staff that greeted us by name when we walked in and the cool décor: Bucca’s manager had a photography hobby and covered the walls in photos that were always interesting to look at and discuss. We were crushed when we walked by one day and found the name changed to Bucolino’s. The menu was similar, but when we entered no one recognized us and, worst of all, the photos were gone. In their place were bright, graffiti-style murals that might have been welcome in some other context, but that felt so jarring and ugly in our beloved space.

We ate at Bucolino’s only once. When I asked the waitstaff what had happened, all I got in response was a curt “new owner.” This new owner was too busy to speak with us. It’s a shame, because the food was still pretty great, but no one had made any effort to sell us on the new identity. I kept thinking that if the new venue had tried to reach out to Bucca’s customer base, maybe we would have felt differently; maybe we would have given it a chance. So I was interested to read a recent blog on IHRSA’S website that takes up the issue of new ownership. The blog asks: “How can we market a club that’s under new ownership to let consumers know we’re making major changes to what had been a mismanaged facility?” Bucca had never been mismanaged, but the question stood: How do you let your customers know things are going to change?

Paul Brown, CEO of Face2Face Retention Systems in Queensland, Australia, told IHRSA, “When you take over the reins of an existing business, be excited, be bold, and be loud.” Joe Cirulli, Founder and CEO of Gainsville Health & Fitness Center, suggests making it a priority to ensure the facility is in tip-top shape, connect with existing staff and make efforts to meet their needs, and use word-of-mouth advertising to let the public know. All of these pieces of advice are good ones. I wish Bucolino’s had followed them. If you’re taking over a new facility, spread the word, and — whether there were problems that need fixing or you’re taking an already great business to new heights — advertise widely and positively about the change. A few specific steps to consider taking:

• Hold town-hall-style meetings with members, seeking useful feedback. This could be done in real life or virtually. Using social media outlets like Facebook and Twitter to elicit members’ ideas about what to keep for the facility’s new incarnation and what to alter would be a great way both to let your customers know about the change and to include them in your process.

• As Brown suggests, “Solicit editorial coverage in local and regional newspapers and websites. Invite interviews and offer to submit prewritten pieces.” The goal in taking these steps would be to inform the public and give yourself some degree of control in the way news of the new ownership is announced and received.

• Plan a grand relaunch celebration. Go out of your way to make the new incarnation a big deal. Rather than doing it without a word, like Bucolino’s did, almost even pretending it didn’t happen, blow horns and send up flares. Invite local dignitaries and offer incentives to get both members and prospectives in the door. During relaunch events, make yourself available and accessible to anyone who might have questions about the facility’s new direction.

• Save yourself time and money by investing in an all-in-one gym management software to streamline your business practices. Do your research to find a software solution to address all of your needs. For example, more health and fitness management software include features such as trainer scheduling, membership management, a point of sale system, and a sophisticated member check-in system compatible with most mobile devices.

It doesn’t take much to make a facility under new ownership as great — or much better — than whatever existed before. But you do have to make some efforts.

I have a confession to make: Exercise bores me. Don’t get me wrong — I love staying fit, and I love the way I feel after a great workout, but no matter what exercise routine I try, after a while I get bored and want something new. For a while I was into spin classes. Then it was Zumba. Then aquatic aerobics, HIIT-style repetitions, and just plain jogging. Now I’m all about indoor climbing. I was starting to think there’s something wrong with me, but then I stumbled across a post on the “Be Active Your Way” blog, a publication of the Department of Health and Human Services. Written by Alexandra Black, a dietician and IHRSA’s Health Promotion Manager, the article is not about keeping exercise interesting — but it nevertheless put my mind at ease and inspired me to continue trying new routines.

What the article is about is this: using trial and error to determine the best workouts for individuals. “Each person,” Black writes, “has a unique genetic makeup, different life experiences, and varied medical histories that make it nearly impossible to prescribe one great diet or one great fitness plan for all.” Because of this, she says, the best way for individuals to figure out what works for them is through trial and error. The health and medical industries are beginning to recognize this, and the result of moving away from a one-size-fits-all mindset is better care and better long-term health for people. Black puts it this way: “As the trend towards individualized healthcare continues, we’re recognizing that every person is different, and that treating them as such — both in healthcare and in wellness — is often where the real magic happens.”

Which brings me back to my boredom issue. Reading Black’s thoughts on trial and error made me realize that the only way for me to find a routine that doesn’t eventually bore me is to keep trying new ones — and that it’s okay to do so. Maybe I just haven’t found the right one yet, and I need to keep searching until I do. Or maybe it’s the case that my genetic makeup, life experiences, and medical history make me a person who needs constant changes in her workout routine in order to most benefit from working out. Whatever the case, thinking about fitness as something that requires an individualized approach completely changes the way I think about working out. It gives me a feeling that I have permission to keep trying whatever I want to try.

Why am I sharing all this? Because chances are that an individualized fitness approach is something that would appeal to your members too. Of course, if you have personal trainers or some kind of personalized workout program, you already promote individualized fitness — but doing so explicitly could put your members at ease (enough so that they renew their memberships and talk your facility up to all their friends and social network connections). Defining individualized fitness and explaining its benefits — through posters, emails, social media, and one-on-one sales and promotion pitches — can help your members feel freer to engage in their own trial and error, giving new workouts and exercises a try, experimenting until they know what works best for them. And helping them in that way greatly increases the chances that they’re going to keep coming back to you.

I was surfing around on the Internet the other day when a jarring Club Industry headline caught my attention: “American Physical Inactivity Reaches Six-Year High, Club Memberships Increase.” It doesn’t seem to make any sense, but according to a recent report from the Physical Activity Council (PAC), a group made up of IHRSA and five other sports and manufacturer associations, it is the case that 82.7 million Americans (28.3 percent) were physically inactive in 2014, an increase of 0.7 percent from 2013. It is also the case that health club memberships have grown by 18.6 percent since 2008, with the total number of health club visits in 2014 surpassing five billion for the second year in a row. Health club members checked in an average of 103 times in 2014, an all-time high.

What does it all mean? The data, based on nearly 11,000 online interviews carried out with a nationwide sample of individuals and households, suggest that the country’s fitness-related crises — obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and the like — are here to stay, and perhaps only getting worse. But at the same time, more and more people are joining health clubs and they’re visiting their clubs more often.

It can be hard, with statistics, to make meaningful interpretations and arrive at some kind of truth. But it seems safe to say, at the very least, that the news from the Physical Activity Council is both good and bad. As Tom Cove, PAC chairman and president and CEO of the Sports and Fitness Industry Association put it, “While we can look at [the physical inactivity] number in a negative light, I would like to use it as a wakeup call to not only our industry but the rest of society. It’s time we put our time and resources into industry initiatives and national campaigns to increase physical activity.”

In other words, the number may be alarming, but we can use it to start instigating change. And there’s no group better positioned to do so than the fitness industry — especially given that other statistic, the steadily growing popularity of fitness centers and health clubs. Joe Moore, IHRSA President and CEO, explained it this way: “These numbers demonstrate the important role health clubs play in helping more and more Americans improve their overall health and wellbeing.”

Thus, while the two statistical figures seem contradictory, they’re really sending the same message: Venues that enable and promote fitness and opportunities for exercise are a vital part of the equation when it comes to keeping the country healthy, and we, as an industry, need to step up our efforts to reverse the trend toward greater physical inactivity.

In practical terms, maybe this means it’s time for your club to become more involved in your community and to actively seek out members of the community who lack physical activity. Programs that create incentive for such people to try out your facility and that then support their efforts to sustain a more active lifestyle could work wonders—and could lead to benefits for both them and your club. We spend so much time focusing on physical activity, but maybe what we need to do now is shift our attention to physical inactivity.

As winter is a time for hunkering down, it seems appropriate that I haven’t been able to get myself to the gym for several weeks now; all I want to do is curl up under a blanket. I have, however, managed to find a few exercise podcasts and videos and start working up a sweat in my home office. I know I’m not getting quite the level of exercise I need: no equipment, no trainer, no instructor, no fellow sufferers. But it’s hard to kick my own rear in a gym-ward direction when I know I can get at least some sort of workout at home.

I’m not the only one. I have a couple of friends who swear by the stationary bikes in their living rooms; one guy I know has an entire weight room in his basement. And recently the Wall Street Journal reported that, while sales of traditional home fitness equipment have declined in the past few years, and while the percentage of Americans with gym memberships has pretty much held steady, sales of lower-priced fitness items, like yoga mats and workout DVDs, have increased. The fact is that sometimes fitness centers are competing for customers not only with other fitness centers, but also with those customers’ personal spaces. What can be done to pull people — yes, people like me — away from the yoga blocks in their closet or the medicine balls in their bedroom and into the gym?

The key is to offer benefits that outweigh the benefits of working out at home. The way I see it, working out at home has three major benefits: It saves money, it saves time, and it’s oh-so-convenient. But I know that going to the gym instead of exercising at home would get me to my fitness goals faster. There, I can use equipment that much more efficiently burns fat and increases muscle than anything I can do at home. More importantly, I can call upon the expertise of trainers and instructors who can show me how to position my body just right or explain why I’m at risk of injuring myself if I’m performing reps incorrectly.

But the best thing, the thing I most lack at home? External sources of motivation. No matter how great the podcast I’m streaming might be, it’s nothing compared to the rush I get when I’m trying to run faster than the guy on the treadmill next to me, or the comfort I feel when I mess up a Zumba move and a sympathetic classmate tells me not to worry about it, or the simple satisfaction that comes from not being the only one, all alone, trying to keep myself healthy and live right.

So your task as a health club owner or manager is to remind me why I’m better off at the gym. Have your fitness concierge (you have one, right?) send out emails to folks like me to tell us what the gym can offer us that we can’t get at home. Post videos on social media that show me other people who managed to get themselves to the gym that day. Even ask one of your trainers to call and check in on me — you can bet that being held accountable by someone I’m eager to please is going to finally get my butt out the door. I know I’m saying the onus is on you, but that’s really how it is. You got the gym up and running; it’s your job to get me coming to it.

Keep in mind, too, that you actually can compete directly with some of the home-based workout benefits. Given that convenience is a big factor, you can offer special deals to people who live close to your facility — within a few blocks, say, or within a mile or two. You’re convenient for at least some people. Make it your business to make sure those people know it. And given that saving time and money is a big factor, you can consider offering winter discounts and designing (and widely advertising) super fast classes, ones that get members in and out of the gym in under thirty minutes.

It might be hard to lure people like me out of our houses before the crocuses start blooming and the birds start singing, but it’s not impossible. Make it worth our while.

No one likes rush hour. The crowds, the slowness, the general irritation of having other people block your way — given the choice, most people would go far out of their way to avoid it. In fact, in a recent study by The Retention People, researchers found that the one complaint members of top-performing clubs have most often is that the clubs are too busy at peak times. This, of course, is good news for clubs: Too busy equals successful. But you have to balance that kind of success with retention. If your members become fed-up with crowded spaces and inadequate facilities, they might choose to leave and you’ll be stuck watching your retention rates sink.

Unfortunately for members, many of them do not have a choice about avoiding rush hour. They work regular business hours and tend to families, and that leaves few options for hitting the gym: before work, during lunch, or after work. In other words, rush hour. So what can you do to improve the rush hour experience for your members?

Interestingly, The Retention People study asked members a single question: On a scale of 1 to 10, how likely is it that you would recommend your health club to a friend or colleague? Respondents were categorized according to their ratings: “Promotors” gave their clubs a rating of 9 or 10, “Passives” a rating of 7 or 8, and “Detractors” a rating of 0 through 6. Respondents also were given the option of explaining their answer. Researchers then used scores and common phrases to identify issues. As far as the rush hour problem goes, some of the words detractors most commonly used were “crowded,” “changing rooms,” and “equipment,” in explaining their reasons for responding negatively. If you’re looking to improve rush hour, these are the areas you should focus on.

• Crowded: Assess the space in your facility. In particular, watch the flow of traffic into and out of the facility during peak times. Do customers wait in line to reach the front desk? If so, increase your front desk staff or consider whether you need to make staff changes. If employees are not the issue, is there another way to increase efficiency up front? Can you install automatic card readers (if you don’t have them already), so members can flash their IDs and go? What about other spaces in the facility? Where are the crowds? How can you even them out?

• Changing rooms: Assess your changing room areas. First of all, do you have the resources to expand them? If not, can you do a redesign? Ideally, of course, you want changing rooms to offer plenty of locker space, wide aisles for a free flow of traffic, and enough showers, bathroom stalls, and dressing-room spaces that customers never feel like they’re being made to wait. If your changing rooms are cramped or inadequate and reconstruction isn’t an option, can you designate secondary changing rooms (such as family rooms) for specific groups during rush hour only? Can you hire more attendants to ensure smoother operation?

• Equipment: Again, you need to assess your situation: Do you have enough desirable equipment — and enough space for it — that members never feel like they’re waiting for the treadmill, medicine ball, stationary bike, or whatever other item it might be that they want to use? If not, can you acquire more of the most sought-after pieces of equipment? Can you impose a rush-hour only time limit on those pieces?

It’s going to be impossible to give everyone everything they want during rush hour. Some members will have to wait sometimes. Some will have to grudgingly deal with time limits. Some will get fed up and leave. But if you can reduce the chances of losing members, it’s worth trying to do so. One other interesting thing to note about The Retention People study: Promotors at top-performing clubs — that is, members who rated the likelihood of their recommending the club to others very high — said that what they like about their club is the “fantastic staff”, “great service”, and “friendly team.” If reducing the rush hour crunch is too challenging, then you can always compensate with supreme customer service. That goes a long way toward solving every problem.

We’ve talked before in this space about going green: making small changes to everyday practices in order to create more eco-friendly athletic and fitness facilities. We’ve talked about making big changes too: about using sustainable building materials and developing lighting, heating, and cooling strategies that leave smaller environmental footprints. One thing we haven’t talked about, though, is laundry. That’s why I was glad to see a great article about athletic laundry facilities on Athletic Business’s website.

The article points out the complications of working at an athletic laundry facility: the use of multiple fabric types in sports uniforms (today’s uniforms typically comprise five different types); the need to have a constant supply of towels available on demand; the expectation that workout clothes and other gear will be clean and ready whenever needed. Given the high-pressure environment, it’s not surprising that ecological efficiency is not the first thing on a laundry room’s agenda. But the laundry room is a place where a huge footprint can be left. From massive amounts of water, to massive amounts of energy used to power the water, to the chemicals required for those complicated cleaning jobs, athletic laundry rooms present big challenges to the “go green” effort.

So, if you run an athletic facility — or a fitness center with a laundry room for processing copious towels — what can you do to strive for greater eco-efficiency?

Start with the water. As the Athletic Business article notes, using programmable-control machines that automatically choose appropriate water levels for different wash jobs reduces human error in water consumption. Also, filling machines with appropriately sized loads makes a big difference. Most people underload, Gary Gauthier, a regional sales manager with the Pellerin Milnor Corporation, told Athletic Business. “This practice,” he said, “wastes water, chemicals, energy, and time.” What’s an appropriate load size? “I encourage that frontloading washer-extractors be filled until there’s a football-sized opening at the top of the basket,” Gauthier said. Other possibilities to consider: washers that have shower-rinse features along with bath-rinse features, washers that use polymer beads or other new technologies in place of most water, and washers that allow you to reclaim the water used for rinsing.

Next, think about chemicals. Taking steps to conserve water is just the beginning. Choosing the right chemicals also goes a long way toward reducing environmental impact. Cold-water chemicals that clean fabrics effectively save on costs associated with heating water. Ozone, a chemical less harsh than chlorine and equally effective in smaller amounts, disappears as it cleans and loosens fibers for softer, cleaner items; it also has the added benefit of conserving water because it requires less to get the job done. Whatever chemicals you choose for your facility, laundry experts recommend building up a good working relationship with your chemical representatives. “A knowledgeable chemical rep who can visit the laundry locally and solve cleaning issues is an ideal resource for any athletic facility,” Gauthier told Athletic Business.

Finally, review your laundry facility’s operational efficiency regularly. With continually updated uniforms, new styles of towels, changes in practice gear and equipment, and other frequently changing variables in the laundry room, it’s essential to keep your laundering practices up-to-date. Otherwise, it’s easy to keep cycling through routines established in past years (or even decades) without pausing to consider whether those routines are still relevant. Reviewing your operational efficiency allows you to analyze data related to towel loads, water usage, chemical optimization, and much more, and to make decisions related to your analysis. In other words, don’t let the laundry room operate on autopilot. Take charge of the controls, and you’ll find yourself with a more sustainable facility — and maybe even cleaner clothes.

Nearly every day, on my walks, jogs, or bike rides through Central Park, I see them: handfuls of people using benches for leg dips or tricep drills, doing pushups in the pathways, or swinging kettlebells in unison. These are the small group training classes, growing in popularity across the industry seemingly day by day. With each group is an instructor, carefully watching and giving tips and critiques as the exercisers push themselves toward whatever goals they separately and collectively have. That “collectively” aspect is significant, I think, because I also see lone exercisers — joggers, yogis, stretchers — and, on the whole, the ones in groups look happier. They laugh with each other, they chat while they’re mid-squat, they exchange eye-rolls when their trainer asks for ten more burpees.

Consisting usually of three to five students, small group training sessions hold benefits for everyone. Trainers get to take on more clients and increase their incomes; members get individualized attention at lower costs plus a ready-made, intimate community working toward similar goals; and fitness facilities get a new revenue stream, possibly new members, and very likely increased retention. Ultimately, small group training combines the most attractive aspects of a gym workout: They’re fun, they’re social, and they produce results.

Is it any wonder, then, that the phenomenon is continuingly increasing in popularity? In 2007, it was 19 on the American College of Sports Medicine’s annual list of trends driving the fitness industry. By 2013, it was 10; last year, it was 9. Health and fitness expert Pete McCall, at the American Council on Exercise (ACE), wrote in a blog at the end of last year, “[2015] may be the year we see revenue from small-group programming surpass revenue generated by one-on-one personal training.” Everyone seems to agree: It’s a trend that’s here to stay, and it’s only going to grow.

What does its popularity mean for your facility? If you haven’t already incorporated small group training into your offerings, it’s time to consider doing so. Getting started requires little to no upfront investment. Everything you need is already there: equipment, trainers, members. It’s just a question of programming and getting the word out. For the programming aspect, focus on designing classes that last at least four to six weeks — that gives participants a chance to bond with one another and see some results. Sessions should take place during set times, and often it is useful to design them around specific topics: in one class lower back health, for example, in another, leg strength. Put groups together either by advertising the start of a small group class that will focus on a particular topic and inviting participants, or by asking members to coordinate their own groups; trainers can then tailor the topics to the group’s needs and wants.

As for getting the word out, one great way to do this is to hold sessions in a central, visible location in your club. This will drum up interest from other members and also create an energy and can infuse the whole facility. Also, of course, advertise heavily on social media, through email blasts, and via flyers and posters in your facility. And rely on word of mouth. One of the best aspects of small group training is that it naturally encourages members to pull their friends in for workouts; let them spread the word about your exciting new offerings. Some of those friends could turn into new members, and with the intense bonds that small group training encourages among participants, those members are likely to want to stay.

Soon after I first joined my gym, I was describing my experiences there to a friend of mine. “Wait,” she said. “Do you even work out?”

It was a valid question. Pretty much all I’d talked about were the sauna and steam room. I’m not ashamed to admit it: These were my absolute favorite features of the gym. Yeah, yeah, I’d get in a good workout — all well and good. But stepping into that steam room afterward? That was heaven. Cooling off with a cold shower after the steam room and then heating myself to dry perfection in the sauna? An even higher plane of heaven.

And then came the day when I finished my workout, went to the locker room, got myself all ready for the steam-filled wonderfulness — and found myself staring at a sign that said, “Out of Order Until Further Notice. Sorry for the Inconvenience.” I didn’t cry. I still had the sauna. Until soon after, when I found on the sauna door, you guessed it, a sign that read, “Out of Order Until Further Notice. Sorry for the Inconvenience.” I actually did feel almost on the verge of tears when I saw that one.

I don’t blame my gym. Saunas and steam rooms are hard to maintain. And eventually the facility got things up and running again, and in the long-run I wasn’t too terribly inconvenienced. But still. A sauna and/or steam room can be a huge draw for prospective members and a key to retaining current members. Figuring out how to keep them up — and keep them clean, welcoming, and well-maintained — is crucial for any fitness facility offering them as amenities. Here are a few sauna care tips to keep in mind:

1. Adopt a rigid cleaning regimen. It’s best to do this at the outset, so if you’ve got a brand new or recently renovated facility, you’re in a good position to make sure your sauna flor and steam room will look forever pristine. If you’re an established facility and your sauna maintenance cleaning regimen is only so-so, it’s time to step things up. At a minimum, require staff to thoroughly wipe and deep clean these rooms weekly; with some sauna cleaning products. Especially ensure that they scrub under benches with a damp cloth and mild detergent cleaner— that’s where all the sweat stains and dirt coming off of users’ bodies go.

2. Pay particular attention to surfaces touched frequently. Reino Tarkiainen, president of Portland, Oregon-based Finlandia Sauna, recently told Athletic Business magazine that new benches should be coated with a water-based sealant to allow for easier sponge cleaning and reduce perspiration stains from users. Wood, in general, is hard to wash, Tarkiainen cautioned, especially because a commercial cleaning agent can stain it — as can simply plain water. The best method, he said, is to ask patrons to use a towel. “It’s good protection for themselves, and that body moisture goes into the towel,” he told Athletic Business. He also said that facility owners should be prepared to replace wooden benches and backrests in a sauna frequently — even once a year. It’s a relatively inexpensive step that will extend the life of a sauna for years.

3. When it’s time to build or rebuild, choose materials carefully. It’s traditional for saunas to feature all wood and for steam rooms to feature all tile, but other, more durable options exist. Areas in a sauna that will be touched should be wood like red cedar, but other areas could be done in tile and stone, which last longer than wood. Doors can be aluminum, and special plastics designed to withstand high heat can be used in door handles and even floors. With steam rooms, tile can be replaced with specialized plastic that is resistant to bacteria and mold growth. Any materials prone to get moldy or rust — wood, metal — should be avoided in a steam room.

4. Keep saunas and steam rooms welcoming. Consider carefully the lighting used in your sauna and steam room. Typically, light fixtures in these settings appear to be surrounded by jelly jars set in a small cage. These can be hidden with valences or placed below benches. Alternatively, you can find ways to use glass creatively to bring in more natural light. And, for both steam rooms and saunas, consider aroma enhancement — if it smells right, it will feel clean, and patrons, relishing the relaxing environment they are privileged to experience, might even be more likely to follow the rules you set to keep your amenities lasting forever.

Last year, my friend and I both started using a running app. The app coached us through sessions and let us keep track of our goals, routes, calories burned, and distances. It also gave us the option to link to our Facebook accounts so that our intentions and our successes (and, yes, failures) could be publicly broadcast. My friend chose to keep her Facebook community up-to-date; I chose to lie low.

You probably won’t be surprised to learn that she’s still running (she recently signed up for a 10K), while I’ve called it quits. We started out pretty equal in terms of experience, fitness, and determination levels — but she found the motivation to keep going, while somewhere along the way I got bored or distracted or lazy or something. To be honest, I don’t entirely know why I stopped. But I suspect I know why she didn’t: She had a community to support her.

It’s a scientifically verified fact that when we have a community supporting our efforts to accomplish a goal, we’re much more likely actually to actually accomplish it. In one study conducted by Weilos, a social media site where people post about their attempts to lose weight, individuals who documented their progress by publicly posting photos of their bodies lost 1.2 pounds per week, while individuals who relied only on a diet and exercise program lost .27 pounds. In another study, published in 2013 in Translational Behavioral Medicine, one group of participants enrolled in a weight-loss program was asked to publish progress, questions, and requests for support on Twitter; a second group was asked to post nothing. While the two groups showed equal amounts of weight loss, individuals who posted most frequently always lost the most weight. The message is clear: Establish a community and you’re more likely to stick to your goals.

The thing is, not everyone whose goals involve weight loss or fitness wants a virtual community. That’s where fitness facilities come in. With a fitness facility, you are able to provide exercisers with real-life access to a group of people with similar goals and real-life access to a staff whose purpose is to help further those goals. Those are huge assets, and we constantly hear industry stories suggesting that facilities with the best member retention and most successful word-of-mouth new membership campaigns are the ones that make people feel they are a part of something. As Anthony Wall, Director of Professional Education at the American Council on Exercise in San Diego, California, expressed it in a recent post on the IHRSA blog: “Exactly how a club creates a sense of belonging and community will depend, to some extent, on the type of facility. However, at the end of the day, it comes down to making members feel welcome…. the one thing that all successful health and fitness facilities have in common is staff who are genuinely concerned about members, and enjoy being part of their involvement in club activities.”

Ali Lucas, Director of Marketing for BodyBusiness Health Club and Spa in Austin, Texas, agrees. “Hire and fire the right people,” she said in the same blog post. “Define your purpose and values, and compare every decision against them. Compensate and reward employees based on their performance. Train them to create a consistent member and guest experience.” She tells the story of a former member who had to cancel because she was moving out of state. The member posted a video testimonial — which in itself is telling — saying that she was going to miss two things: her church and her health club. “Lots of gyms have nice equipment and good classes,” the member said in the video, “but it’ll be hard to find one with the same kind of heart.”

That’s what you want: for your members to recognize the heart in your facility, and to feel an emotional attachment to the community they have there. Building such a community depends first of all, on your staff. It also depends on your efforts to promote social interaction, whether you introduce members to each other, hold networking events, form clubs that address members’ interests, or, yes, build up an online social media presence. Whatever your approach, make it part of your membership and retention strategy to make your facility a true community. You’ll know you’ve achieved that when you hear a member call it “home.”

I have a confession to make: Exercise bores me. Don’t get me wrong — I love staying fit, and I love the way I feel after a great workout, but no matter what exercise routine I try, after a while I get bored and want something new. For a while I was into spin classes. Then it was Zumba. Then aquatic aerobics, HIIT-style repetitions, and just plain jogging. Now I’m all about indoor climbing. I was starting to think there’s something wrong with me, but then I stumbled across a post on the “Be Active Your Way” blog, a publication of the Department of Health and Human Services. Written by Alexandra Black, a dietician and IHRSA’s Health Promotion Manager, the article is not about keeping exercise interesting — but it nevertheless put my mind at ease and inspired me to continue trying new routines.

What the article is about is this: using trial and error to determine the best workouts for individuals. “Each person,” Black writes, “has a unique genetic makeup, different life experiences, and varied medical histories that make it nearly impossible to prescribe one great diet or one great fitness plan for all.” Because of this, she says, the best way for individuals to figure out what works for them is through trial and error. The health and medical industries are beginning to recognize this, and the result of moving away from a one-size-fits-all mindset is better care and better long-term health for people. Black puts it this way: “As the trend towards individualized healthcare continues, we’re recognizing that every person is different, and that treating them as such — both in healthcare and in wellness — is often where the real magic happens.”

Which brings me back to my boredom issue. Reading Black’s thoughts on trial and error made me realize that the only way for me to find a routine that doesn’t eventually bore me is to keep trying new ones — and that it’s okay to do so. Maybe I just haven’t found the right one yet, and I need to keep searching until I do. Or maybe it’s the case that my genetic makeup, life experiences, and medical history make me a person who needs constant changes in her workout routine in order to most benefit from working out. Whatever the case, thinking about fitness as something that requires an individualized approach completely changes the way I think about working out. It gives me a feeling that I have permission to keep trying whatever I want to try.

Why am I sharing all this? Because chances are that an individualized fitness approach is something that would appeal to your members too. Of course, if you have personal trainers or some kind of personalized workout program, you already promote individualized fitness — but doing so explicitly could put your members at ease (enough so that they renew their memberships and talk your facility up to all their friends and social network connections). Defining individualized fitness and explaining its benefits — through posters, emails, social media, and one-on-one sales and promotion pitches — can help your members feel freer to engage in their own trial and error, giving new workouts and exercises a try, experimenting until they know what works best for them. And helping them in that way greatly increases the chances that they’re going to keep coming back to you.

I’m guessing you barely even have time to read this, so I’m going to get straight to the point: The January rush is on. You’ve been preparing for it, no doubt, since early last month. Take a breather (a really short one) and make sure you’ve got all your ducks in a row. If you don’t, don’t panic: You still have time to create solutions and ready yourself and your facility for the swell of 2016 resolution-makers you’re going to see in the coming weeks. Here are some top tips:
1) Ensure that any new staff members you’ve hired to handle the busy time are fully trained and confident. You probably lined those new employees up several weeks ago, and no doubt you’ve been teaching them the ins and outs of your facility’s operations. Don’t assume they’re ready to fly, though: You need to check in with them frequently (several times a day for the first week or so) to make sure they understand your procedures and are handling your most valuable resources (your customers) with great care. Give them ample opportunity to ask questions about anything they don’t understand. Create checklists for them to simplify their tasks. Hold staff meetings once a week, and publicly recognize the contributions of your temporary staff members so they feel invested in your facility.
2) With all staff, old and new, temporary and long term, make sure you’ve conveyed a clear idea about what to expect. They need to be prepared to handle lines of people checking in, chaotic situations, and possibly some impatient customers. The more prepared they are, the more likely they’ll be to keep their cool in tough situations.
3) Your sales team needs to be as highly prepared as your greeters and front desk staff. Educate the team about the specific ways in which your club stands out from the competition. In order to leave prospects with the impression that it’s simply a fact that your club is better, your sales staff should be able to spew off your club’s distinguishing features effortlessly and with great confidence. On a related note, if there’s any time of the year to offer sign-up incentives, this is it. Figure out what extras your facility can offer to attract new members, and make sure prospects understand exactly what those extras are.
4) Increase your staff’s efficiency. Arm sales people and other employees with tablets or other mobile devices that make processes seamless for both prospects and current members. Front desk folk can walk down the line of waiting customers, checking them in. Sales staff can iron out the enrollment process by having paperless forms at their fingertips.
5) Adjust schedules to accommodate heavy traffic. Slate classes for non-peak hours in order to channel people toward slower periods. If, during these heavily trafficked weeks, you realize your current schedule isn’t working, don’t be afraid to make changes. Customers will easily adjust once they realize their own needs are better served by more efficiently scheduled classes.
Whatever you do during this beginning-of-the-year rush, take note of what works for you and what doesn’t. Reflect on ways in which you might be better prepared next year. If necessary, make resolutions of your own about getting started in November this year. Post-Halloween is the perfect time to begin setting yourself up for New Year’s success — and to make things run so smoothly that you’re setting your new and existing members up for success as well.

So, here’s a question: How many of your facility’s offerings have to do with helping your clients strengthen their core? If you answered, “A lot,” that’s a good start, or so would say some industry leaders who believe focusing on the core is the best possible strategy right now — for both fitness businesses and clients. If you answered, “All of them,” you’re at the forefront of a new trend: facilities that make core-training the foundation of their entire business model. A recent, fascinating article on the IHRSA website takes a close look at the growing trend and at the expansion of core-training offerings at fitness facilities around the country.

Mike Z. Robinson, IDEA’s 2015 Personal Trainer of the Year and owner of MZR Fitness, a training studio in San Luis Obispo, California, told IHRSA he’s “seen a definite increase in the number of boutique studios that feature core-based movements — facilities that focus, for example, on Pilates and barre. Their main selling point is a workout constructed around the core. At the same time, traditional gyms are offering more core-centric classes, because consumers have become aware of the benefits. Program schedules are reflecting the trend, the demand.”

Some trainers go so far as to say the trend is taking over. Amy Dixon, the national creative manager for group fitness for Equinox Fitness and a master trainer for BOSU and Shockwave, told IHRSA, “For a while, we saw a push toward the high-intensity end of the spectrum. Today, I believe, the pendulum is swinging back…. We’re seeing clubs integrate core into all their classes.” In other words, the focus now is turning toward exercises necessary for sharpening the core and away from the kinds of high-intensity activities that stress the importance of raising, and then resting, the heart rate.

Why the renewed interest in core-based exercising? Dixon, Robinson, and other trainers argue that a strong core is the foundation of good fitness. “When you help clients improve their core strength,” said Kim Ingleby, founder of the Energised Performance studio in Bristol, England, “you’re making it possible for them to progress to more complex exercises while simultaneously reducing the probability of injury.” A strong core, therefore, lowers the chances of sprains and other pains, and increases the chances of improved results for members. At the same time, it reduces liability concerns for clubs, because clients are progressing through strength-training safely and appropriately.

How do you jump on the trend? It’s easy to incorporate core basics into an existing program. Think beyond crunches, which are effective but not as effective as other moves; it’s better to focus on motions that truly integrate the core, such as squats, push-ups, or lateral lunges. As Dixon puts it, “Multidimensional movement is the key.” Think about how you might pull such movements into, say, classes for skiing or triathlons. Also, keep in mind that manufacturers are coming out with more and more core-focused pieces, such as BOSU, CoreTex, and Core Stix. Other equipment mentioned by some of the trainers IHRSA spoke with include TPX, ViPR, and Life Fitness’s SYNRGY360. Also, consider designing a core-for-beginners class, one aimed at a population that never has thought much about its core, let alone exercised it before. “Everyone, no matter their age or their initial condition, needs core work,” Dixon pointed out, “and, with the right training, they will improve.” But they need to be given the chance to get started.

Wherever you boost up your core offerings, keep in mind that it’s crucial to let your clients know, first of all, that you consider core-work vital, and second of all, that you’re creating more possibilities for clients to focus on the core. Use social media, email blasts, face-to-face sales, and attractive flyers to get the word out. And make sure you emphasize the possibility for fun when it comes to core-training — and the great potential benefits.