October 4, 2013 – This fall, Spike TV will start production on a new show geared toward the fitness industry. Gym Rescue, a reality television series created to help document and fix the problems of failing gyms, will feature former Ultimate Fighting Championship winner and owner of Xtreme Couture, Randy Couture. Couture will locate struggling gyms, assess their core problems, and design solutions aimed at making them successful.
“Gyms [for the show] can be of any type: fighting or fitness, climbing, gymnastics or yoga,” Scott Hiller, the casting producer working with the show, told FightLine.com. The problems [can be] of any kind and combination too, such as failing marketing strategies, equipment in disrepair, staffing issues, poor management.”
Emily Wilensky, Marketing Manager, of EZFacility, a gym management software developer in Bethpage, New York, said the show will highlight the challenges of running a successful gym and may help gym owners around the country figure out how to turn around their own businesses. “As with any business, gym ownership and management is a challenge,” she said. “A national television show that presents the difficulties in a dramatic format and demonstrates how to analyze the problems that lead to failure, and how to fix them before failure happens, could be hugely valuable to the industry.”
Initially, Spike TV is looking for facilities in Colorado and Minneapolis and in and around Philadelphia, New York City, and New Jersey. However, Hiller stressed, the gyms featured will not be limited to those areas. Gyms owners interested in appearing on the show should contact Spike TV directly or via Facebook.
New Realty TV Show for Failing Gyms
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I had a nice little visit to the emergency room the other day. I injured my foot, and I wish I could say I did so while training for a marathon or participating in an Insanity workout or some such thing, but truthfully I was just racing my seven-year-old downhill, and I landed on it awkwardly.
When the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) unveiled its Green Sports Resource Directory in August, I remembered the horse farm my son and I visited earlier this year. A sprawling establishment, with state-of-the-art stables, a vast indoor arena, 34 acres of beautiful land, and a big, old-fashioned farmhouse – the place must have cost a fortune to maintain. Or so I thought, until I noticed the solar panels blanketing one side of the barn roof. I asked the owner if using solar energy cut down on his costs. “My electricity bill is about $19 a month,” he said proudly. “No,” I said, “I don’t mean for the stables; I mean for the whole farm.” “Yep,” he said. “Nineteen dollars a month.”
It’s back-to-school month — and Childhood Obesity Awareness month. Even if your fitness facility caters mostly (or exclusively) to adults, you can contribute to the effort to draw attention to childhood obesity and its devastating consequences.
For many gyms, the end-of-summer push for new members is coming to a close; that effort won’t be ramped up again for another six months or so. So what do you concentrate on in the meantime? Retaining members, of course! As profitable as new sign-ups, or sometimes, with upselling, more profitable, retaining members is a goal all clubs have — but the goal is sometimes elusive. Here are a few refresher tips on retaining members effectively.
I (and millions of other people) have a new obsession: high-intensity interval training (HIIT). Seemingly everyday there’s a new study showing how effective it is as a method for keeping the heart in shape, burning fat, increasing muscle, and generally just feeling great. But what I love most about it, and I know I’m not alone in this, is how quickly it’s over. True, for the seven, twelve, twenty, or however many relatively brief minutes you’re doing it, you think you’re killing yourself — but then you’re done (done except for the fact that, as an added bonus, you raise your metabolism and continue burning calories at rest).
I have a confession to make. I never, ever fill out surveys. I feel irritated when any business interrupts my day with an email seeking my feedback. The impersonal nature of the questions, the idea that I’m just a source of data to be collected, the time it takes to respond — all of these things push my buttons. It’s not that I don’t understand why businesses do it and how the information they gather is useful; I know it’s so that services can be better tailored to consumers. But I can’t help feeling that the cost of filling out a survey, no matter how short and sweet the survey might be, isn’t worth the benefits I reap.
This summer, I was fortunate to get to spend some time at California’s Joshua Tree National Park. One morning, I got up early to view the sunrise from atop a boulder in the park. At 4:45 a.m., I was wearing jeans and a sweatshirt; by 7:30 a.m., my sweatshirt had been abandoned, I’d donned a wide-brimmed hat, and I felt like my jeans were on fire. What’s more, I needed a long swig of water every fifteen minutes or so.