Engaging the members of your facility is one of the most difficult tasks a gym or health club manager has. It can also be one of the most rewarding.
After all, no matter the size of your gym or health club, there is always a need to attract new member, retain current ones and, ultimately, keep everyone motivated to continue their fitness journey. And preferably at your club!
Group fitness is one way many facilities are now engaging their members and achieving all of the above aims.
Research has shown that small group training helps people stick with their training. When scientists compared people that exercised in a group those that exercised by themselves, they found that those who exercised in groups were more likely to stick with the activity after six months.
In a recent blog for Life Fitness USA, Laura Cieplik hit on four ways that fitness facilities can engage their members through group fitness.
Cieplik is the senior director of account management for LifeStart, a company that manages the largest portfolio of corporate fitness centres in the United States, so she knows what she’s talking about.
“LifeStart manages gyms in the corporate setting and our potential membership base is made up of the tenants of the building. Each company brings its own ‘personality’ — traditional, trendy, old, young…the list goes on. We are often faced with the challenge of how we can bring all of these unique groups together and form one, united culture in the fitness center,” Cieplik says in the blog.
“The answer for us has been through engaging the population. A key component of achieving that is by offering unique and creative programming through small group training.”
Cieplik goes on to list her top four ways that health clubs can engage their members, particularly through small group training:
1. Engagement Through Programming
2. Engagement Through Energy
3. Engagement Through Relationships
4. Engagement Through Word of Mouth
“Put your focus into building a successful small group training program and you will grow your new membership base while retaining the old,” Cieplik says.
To read Cieplik’s full blog and see her expand on each of the above points, you can do so on the US Life Fitness site.
For more about the benefits of small group training for your members, see our article ‘5 Benefits of Small Group Training’.
