- Your favorite weight machine is lined up 3 deep with waiting users.
- You need the Bench Press for a chest pump. You must be joking!
- You want to do some leg presses to start your workout. Forget about it!
- Arm curl machine - Not a chance!
- New members hogging a machine for many more sets then they need just through lack of knowledge.
- Hoping to ease the muscles with some rejuvenating sauna heat .Not gonna happen! The newbies are holding the door open and peering in tentatively as the heat escapes.
Bears wait upstream to scoop out the salmon as they swim upstream to spawn. Pickpockets wait in anticipation for tourist season. Sex workers pray for the next political convention to come to town. For Fitness Centers, especially the big box suburban mega gyms, January is the month when the money rolls in.
January is the time when many people decide to make lifestyle changes. Often these lifestyle changes revolve around losing weight and getting physically fit. The hangover guilt from the overeating habits during the Christmas season can be a deciding catalyst for an attempt at a physical makeover. Such aspiring changelings may take up yoga, walking, running, or join a Fitness Center.
The Fitness Center industry is waiting for such aspirants with special deals and supposedly cut rate special memberships.
The crowds at such a Fitness Center can be a hindrance to a brisk in and out time for regular members. They may also wonder how it is sustainable. The buildings are only so large. There are only so many weights and a finite number of machines. This sudden influx of new members taxes the very infrastructure of such facilities. Unless the Fitness Center expands and buys new equipment it seems inevitable that the place will collapse under the weight of it's own membership numbers.
Regular members - worry not. Your mega Fitness Club management has used a form of mathematical trickery to boost revenues by planning for failure. The failure is that of the majority of the new members to give up on their fitness goals within the first month or two.
This is the mega Fitness Center Business plan based on guilt and lack of willpower !
- Oversell memberships that will be underutilized and float through the rest of the year.
- A certain percentage of new members will pay and never even show up at the gym.
- A greater percentage will last for a month or even two months but rarely longer.
- Only a few new members will continue as long time members.
- The Fitness Center will sell memberships for up to a year with monthly payments.
- The contracts are usually for a year so quitters just bite the bullet and keep paying monthly by direct bank withdrawal.
- Rarely do Mega Fitness Centers provide guidance for new members on how to actually get results. They may give a brief weight machine orientation if anything at all.
- Mega gyms may have Fitness Trainers for new members willing to pay extra for such services.
- Mega Fitness Centers often hire appraise their Fitness Trainers based on ability to sign up paying customers rather that exercise knowledge. Such Fitness Trainers tend to give out generic 'cookie cutter' training programs that do not meet the clients real fitness needs.
Good Fitness Center management would try to sign and keep new members through providing some Fitness Training sessions as part of the membership fee. They would appraise their Trainers on technical competence as well as sales skills. New members would receive more than just a walk through orientation. Such clubs would show greater member adherence The reason CrossFit clubs are booming is that newcomers gain a sense of belonging. They are not wandering aimlessly through a myriad of machines.
If you are a prospective new Fitness Club member, do your research!
Read the fine print of the contracts. Don't sign for a long term commitment unless you are certain that you can adhere. Beware of deals that seem to good to be true. One club in Edmonton, Canada called Family Fitness Center was selling lifetime memberships the day before the club went into receivership. (This was in the 1980's. Lifetime memberships are now illegal to sell in many jurisdictions.) Municipal facilities or community centers often have fitness facilities that don't require signing long term contracts.
If you are a steady faithful Fitness Center member just ride out the January rush.
The short term January members subsidize the regular users. You will soon have your elbow room again! Just roll with it and keep pumping up!
Your Fellow Long Term Member
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| Standing room only! The January sales blitz ! |
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| No worries ! By March there will be lots of elbow room ! |
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