Lockdowns changed everything for the fitness industry.
When our gym was finally allowed to open its doors again, we were excited to resume business as usual. We were expecting busy days and hordes of people coming through in after months of isolation and stagnated training.
But when we opened our doors, it was the opposite. No flurry of eager gym-goers like we expected. It was crickets in the gym.
Initially, many members just didn’t show up at all. But when people did start trickling back in, their training preferences were completely different. At this time, we specialised in yoga, strength, and cycling. We also had a HIIT-specific training room. But it seemed like people were after something new.
Doing our research
In 2022, right after the borders opened up, I headed to the URSA Fitness Conference in Miami and found that many speakers were all talking about the same thing.
They were saying how everyone was burnt out and exhausted from the lockdowns. Therefore, they wanted to feel nurtured when they train, not depleted. The general consensus was that reformer Pilates style workouts was set to grow like never before, and HIIT training would be out.
Sure enough, research from ClassPass backed that up, showing that Pilates grew in Australia and NZ by 250% in 2022.
Pilates has never been something that we focused on at our gym. We started as a yoga, strength and cycle studio. A few years later, we found that HIIT was massive, so we re-created one of our training rooms into a HIIT-specific room. After the conference and looking at supporting research, we decided to repurpose the HIIT room and turn it into a Reformer studio.
It was a bet that paid off. Not only did many more members re-sign up to our studio, but the class is now our biggest one. We even have to repurpose our yoga room a few days a week to meet the demand for the class.
Staying ahead of industry trends
I’ve learned that the best way to stay ahead of the trends is to travel and see what the best gyms and fitness studios are doing on the ground.
I do most of my research in LA, NYC and London. I will head over to each city once a year for a week and I will book in to do their classes and check out their facilities.
When I am not travelling, I spend a lot of time reading key news sites in the US and UK and fitness publications to see who the top studios are and what workouts are trending. I also keep an eye on social media. This helps me discover new ideas and decide who I should check out while I am travelling.
A new trend on the horizon for the fitness industry seems to be traditional strength training in a group setting. So not HIIT, and not cross fit (AMRAPs/volume), but instead dumbbell, barbells sets and reps in small group classes.
Final thoughts
There are many fitness franchises and studios that offer one style of training – and that’s fine. That is what you are known for.
But training preferences and fitness classes constantly evolve as people get bored and like to try new things. Therefore, I always put time into researching what is trending worldwide, in case I can bring the concept into Australia to keep our members engaged.
If you are seeing an obvious trend and you are in a position to pivot, it is far better to change your business before the market forces you – because if the market forces you, it means you are going out of business.
