Author: ezfacility

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Helping Your Members Find Their Own Way

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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.

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Cryotherapy: What's All The Fuss About?

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When you hear the words whole-body cryostimulation, an image of Han Solo slowly and dramatically freezing in carbonite while princess Leia watches along in horror may spring to mind. The act of “freezing” is involved in this process; however, (thankfully) it’s not as dramatic as it sounds. While the chemical reactions within the body may seem straight-up science fiction, many elite athletes swear by it. According to recent studies published by Pubmed.org, Cryotherapy has proven to be extremely successful for treating not only inflammation in muscles after excessive exercise, but a variety of other ailments including chronic pain, arthritis, and even mental ailments such as stress and anxiety. However, the question remains: How safe is this method and should you offer it at your facility?

What is Cryotherapy and how does it work?

It’s not new. In fact, Whole Body Cryotherapy (WBC) was first used in clinical settings, to treat patients with medical conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis and multiple sclerosis. Over the years, it has been adopted by many professional athletes–most recently the Green Bay Packers American football team—as well as both elite and recreational athletic training facilities. Health and wellness spas have also expanded their offerings to include Cryotherapy.

The idea is similar to that of ice and heat therapy used by most athletes–and anyone who’s experienced sore muscles–to reduce swelling (think ice baths and the ol’ go-to “icy-hot” packs). However, a Cryotherapy chamber can reach temperatures as low as -264 degrees. Clients strip down and don a protective bathing suit as well as socks, gloves, and mouth and ear guards to protect them from the subzero temperatures. Only a few clients can go through a session at a time as they are guided through a series of chambers filled with nitrogen. After a few seconds–or a few minutes if you’re a real daredevil–you move to the next chamber with each being colder than the last. The cold temperature shocks your body into “survivor mode” as capillaries expand to hastily push more blood, oxygen and nutrients throughout your system and to your vital organs. Essentially, this process removes toxins and inflammatory components from your blood and then, once the body reaches normal temperatures, the new nutrient-rich blood flows back throughout your body.

Okay, so it still sounds a little like science fiction.

While there has been a significant spike in Cryotherapy users and advocates, it remains a very controversial method as the Food and Drug Administration does NOT recognize the benefits of Cryotherapy chambers and does not regulate the devises. The safety of this treatment is still under scrutiny, and many agree that more testing should be done to find hard scientific proof that this method provides quantifiable health benefits for treating pain. Among the many new fitness trends for 2016, injury prevention and recovery will be just as important as how we train. So, if a facility is looking to cash in on this growing trend, it would be wise to learn all it can about the Cryotherapy process and all safety procedures involved. Do your research and know your facts. Before incorporating this method into your facility, look up professional, scientific journals on the subject. You can also talk to facilities that already offer this method and find out how to properly maintain and operate Cryotherapy chambers. Make sure your staff is fully trained to operate the machines properly and safely. Furthermore, it would be beneficial to require a pre-training class with your clients before they begin use to ensure all safety measures have been taken. And lastly, stay up-to-date on news and testimonials about Cryotherapy. If you see a rise in accidents or injuries, make sure you have an emergency plan prepared. Your clients’ safety is of the utmost importance so be sure to keep that in mind when you are doing your research and deciding whether or not offering Cryotherapy is right for your facility.

Atlanta Braves Propose New Training Facility in St. Petersburg

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The Atlanta Braves are proposing moving their spring training facility from the Orlando area to St. Petersburg, Florida. In a formal proposal submitted to officials of Pinellas County, where St. Petersburg is located, Braves president John Schuerholz noted that he hopes to reach an agreement to relocate by the end of the year. Construction of a new training facility would begin by next year, with completion scheduled for 2018.
Eric Willin, COO of EZFacility, a sports facility management software developer, said that the construction of a new facility would be a boon to the baseball team, which would spend less time traveling to practice space and more time on the field. “Also,” he noted, “the proposed facility includes a 10,000-seat stadium with berm seating for an additional 1,000 fans. Along with additional athletic fields and an on-site hotel, that would make the new facility a clear destination for amateur and professional sports alike.”
The Braves have trained at Disney’s Wide World of Sports in Lake Buena Vista, Florida, since 1998, but the team’s lease there expires in 2017. The St. Petersburg location is not the only one under consideration for the new facility, but Braves president John Scheurholz implied in a letter submitted to county officials that it is the most desirable one.
Most likely, any move the Braves make will include public financing. The Astros and the Nationals recently launched new training sites of their own, leaving the same Disney location that the Braves are leaving, and each team received a $108 million pledge in public funds from Palm Beach County, with the state pledging another $50 million toward costs of building and financing the planned facilities.

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How Do You Green the Green?

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I’ve written in this space before about greening sports — using sustainable energy sources, choosing healthier and more efficient building materials, recycling, avoiding cleaners with harmful chemicals. But if you run an athletic center with fields, how do you green those fields? It’s ironic, of course — nothing should be greener. However, in order to stay in perfect shape for game day, natural turf fields require a regimen of chemical applications, mowing, and irrigation that consumes valuable resources, creates waste, and potentially damages the environment.

The good news is, there are a few steps you can take to reduce harmful practices. Consider the following:

1) Choose chemicals that are more environmentally friendly. In an ideal world, we’d eliminate the use of pesticides and fertilizers altogether. Unfortunately, the world isn’t ideal. To maintain budgets and properly oversee highly-trafficked fields, facilities have few alternatives but to treat fields heavily. And, while Environmental Protection Agency regulations have banned most hazardous chemicals from products used for field maintenance, there is still a wide range of products available, some of which are more harmful than others. Whenever possible, choose organic materials for fertilizing and pesticide treatment, not synthetic ones. Coffee grounds, chicken manure, and turkey manure are good alternatives.

2) Reduce water consumption. You need water to keep those fields bright and healthy, but keep in mind that water is a precious commodity: The State of California recently announced it is suffering its worst drought in 1,000 years. How do you use less water and make the most of the water there is? Install systems for reclaiming stormwater and runoff. And then make sure you manage irrigation properly. If it rains one day and there’s plenty of moisture in the soil the next, don’t keep the irrigation system running. Also, consider irrigating only when wind is low, in order to keep evaporation rates down.

3) Re-evaluate your machinery. If you’re using straight-up fuel to power your mowers, look into the possibility of obtaining equipment that runs on biofuels or other clean alternatives. If that equipment does not fit in your budget, cut back on mowing frequency.

4) Think long-term. Whatever you’re doing with your fields today, ask how those practices will affect the immediate and larger environment in the future. If you renovate your fields, can you pulverize material and stockpile it for use elsewhere — on a golf course, for example? Can you create a pond or holding tank to capture water when you irrigate, and then find ways to re-use that water? Can you use material from old fields to fertilize new ones?

5) Ask the experts. Entire university departments exist to research sports turf maintenance. If you want to take a stab at greenifying your fields, reach out to people in the know. They’ll be able to tell you the best type of grass for your locale and particular uses, how often different grass varieties need mowing, what kinds of computerized weather and irrigation systems you might consider installing, and a host of other details that will get on the road to ever greater sustainability.

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PAC Report

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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 centres 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.

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Jumping on the Machine-Based Workout Trend

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Machines in group workout classes: It’s a trend that started slowly and quietly picked up speed, until all of the sudden it’s everywhere. What began with stationary bikes in the exercise room has exploded into treadmills, rowing machines, stairmasters, and ellipticals in the exercise room, and health clubs around the country are benefiting in terms of both retention and secondary revenue. If you haven’t yet begun offering machine-based group classes, or you haven’t expanded your offerings beyond daily spin classes, it’s time to consider the possibilities.

First, understand what kind of machine-based group workouts your community would be interested in. Take an online poll or ask members to fill out a survey when they walk in. Ask questions carefully: You want answers not only from members already familiar with exercise machines but also from members who do not regularly use them. Ask survey-takers what machines they have used in the past, what machines they might be willing to try, whether they’ve ever taken a machine-based group class before, and what might incentivize them to try one. Once you’ve gathered enough responses, assess the results.

Weigh the insight you gathered from members against your capacities as a club. If the majority of respondents said they’d like to try, say, a rowing class, consider whether you already own enough rowing machines to begin offering such a class. If you don’t, do a cost-benefits analysis to determine whether it makes sense to purchase additional rowing machines. If your members’ responses to survey questions leave you with no clear direction — that is, equal numbers want rowing classes and treadmill classes — you’ll need to decide whether you have the space, machinery, and resources to offer both. If not, you may need to make an educated guess about which one seems more likely to attract members (and new clients).

Next, plan out the logistics. Machine-based class programming is necessarily more involved than other kinds of class programming. You have to know what space in your facility can serve as a dedicated rowing, stairmaster, or other specialty machine classroom. Perhaps the machines you need can be isolated to one side of your cardio room and reserved for forty-five-minute stretches at a few points during the day or week when you offer the class. While this kind of planning is under way, consider what new equipment you might need to purchase, and how you’ll go about doing so. Will you take out bank loans to cover the cost? Will you lease machines? If the latter, what type of lease will you seek? It’s best to start a few direct conversations with both banks and leasing companies so you can decide which option will work best for your facility.

Once you have those details plotted out, try offering mini trial classes. You can consider these market research. If you pitch them to members as focus groups that will allow them to have a hand in shaping the class experience, you’ll likely find enthusiastic participants. After the trial classes, survey participants to find out what they liked and didn’t like. Ask specific questions: Did they appreciate whatever music and lighting effects accompanied the class? Do they have suggestions for improving the instruction? Did they like the warm-up segment of the class? The cool-down? What would they change if they could change anything?

Finally, when you have the form of the class fully figured out-advertise! Post videos, photos, and testimonials on social media sites; paper your facility with informative flyers; give trial participants incentives to spread news of the class by word-of-mouth. Soon you’ll be considering what new machine-based class to develop next and, why it took you so long to set one up!

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Jumping on the Machine-Based Workout Trend

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Machines in group workout classes: It’s a trend that started slowly and quietly picked up speed, until all of the sudden it’s everywhere. What began with stationary bikes in the exercise room has exploded into treadmills, rowing machines, stairmasters, and ellipticals in the exercise room, and health clubs around the country are benefitting in terms of both retention and secondary revenue. If you haven’t yet begun offering machine-based group classes, or you haven’t yet expanded your offerings beyond daily spin classes, it’s time to consider the possibilities.

First, understand what kind of machine-based group workouts your community would be interested in. Take an online poll or ask members to fill out a survey when they walk in. Ask questions carefully: You want answers not only from members already familiar with exercise machines but also from members who do not regularly use them. Ask survey-takers what machines they have used in the past, what machines they might be willing to try, whether they’ve ever taken a machine-based group class before, and what might incentivize them to try one. Once you’ve gathered enough responses, assess the results.

Weigh the intelligence you gathered from members against your capacities as a club. If the majority of respondents said they’d like to try, say, a rowing class, consider whether you already own enough rowing machines to begin offering such a class. If you don’t, do a cost-benefits analysis to determine whether it makes sense to purchase additional rowing machines. If your members’ responses to survey questions leave you with no clear direction — that is, equal numbers want rowing classes and treadmill classes — you’ll need to decide whether you have the space, machinery, and resources to offer both. If not, you may need to make an educated guess about which one seems more likely to attract members (and new clients).

Next, plan out the logistics. Machine-based class programming is necessarily more involved than other kinds of class programming; you have to know what space in your facility can serve as a dedicated rowing classroom or stairmaster classroom — or, consider whether it’s possible to hold the class right in your current cardio center. Perhaps the machines you need can be isolated to one side of your cardio room and reserved for forty-five-minute stretches at a few points during the day or week when you offer the class. While this kind of planning is under way, consider what new equipment you might need to purchase, and how you’ll go about doing so. Will you take out bank loans to cover the cost? Will you lease machines? If the latter, what type of lease will you seek? It’s best to start a few direct conversations with both banks and leasing companies so you can decide which option will work best for your facility.

Once you have those details plotted out, try offering mini trial classes. You can consider these market research. If you pitch them to members as focus groups that will allow them to have a hand in shaping the class experience, you’ll likely find enthusiastic participants. After the trial classes, survey participants to find out what they liked and didn’t like. Ask specific questions: Did they appreciate whatever music and lighting effects accompanied the class? Do they have suggestions for improving the instruction? Did they like the warm-up segment of the class? The cool-down? What would they change if they could change anything?

Finally, when you have the form of the class fully figured out, advertise it like crazy. Post videos, photos, and testimonials on social media sites; paper your facility with informative flyers; give trial participants incentives to spread news of the class by word-of-mouth. Soon you’ll find yourself wondering why it took you so long to set one up, and you’ll be considering what new machine-based class to develop next.

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ACE Urges Congress to Focus on Prevention

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Recently, the American Council on Exercise (ACE) submitted a letter to Congress, urging the governmental body to redefine the U.S.’s approach to healthcare. Rather than focus on treating people who are ill, our healthcare system should emphasize illness prevention, ACE argued, while also empowering sufferers of chronic disease to manage their discomfort. As the letter put it: “[O]ur healthcare system needs to shift from one almost solely focused on responding to people who are ill to investing in preventing people from getting sick in the first place and empowering those with chronic conditions to helping themselves when they can.”

Among the intriguing policies that ACE enjoined Congress to adopt is this one: “Allow for financial incentives through tax policies to encourage increased participation through physical activity to reduce the chances of incurring preventable chronic diseases.” What this amounts to in plain English: “Reimburse people who pay to work out!”

In addition to benefitting large swathes of the population, ACE’s proposed financial-incentives plan could, of course, have beneficial effects for the fitness industry. The plan is ingenious. If individuals are reimbursed through tax policies for payments they make to gyms, sports centres, and other fitness facilities, then those individuals will have the opportunity to work toward better health at a lower cost. The facilities they sign up with will enjoy the benefits of a growing membership along with, ideally, built-in incentives for members to stay on-board. And, as citizens become healthier, managing their chronic illnesses and preventing the onset of new disease, the government, over the long term, will begin to see the overall cost of healthcare fall. Everybody wins.

Other proposals in ACE’s letter are equally hopeful. “Make science-based, interdisciplinary coaching, counseling, and support for sustainable behavioral change a functional, integral component of the nation’s healthcare system.” Elsewhere in the letter, ACE describes its members as “advocates for extending the clinic into the community with science-based preventative services delivered by well-qualified professionals not necessarily thought of as healthcare providers.” Put these two together, and you have a movement to enable greater health and healthier decision-making through the involvement of a population of workers not as overburdened as doctors and other medical professionals but qualified to provide health-related guidance — that is, personal trainers, nutritionists, physical therapists, masseuses, and others who make the fitness industry their home.

Another policy ACE pitched to Congress articulates this even more directly: “Extend the healthcare team into the community by tapping well-qualified health and fitness professionals to deliver preventative services and programs focused on behavior change directly in the community, reimbursable by health insurance.” A side benefit of a policy like this one is that health and fitness professionals could be held in greater esteem by the population at large, their knowledge and their services valued for the truly life-transforming elements they are.

All in all, ACE’s letter to Congress is one to read, promote, and actively support. As one of those health and fitness professionals who stands to benefit so much, call your local Congressperson and make your feelings about the letter known. Echo ACE’s words: “The single most effective path to manage rising healthcare costs is to reduce the cost of managing choric disease.” Then explain how your work has proven to you over and over again the truth of this statement.

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Competing with the Home Gym

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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 centres are competing for customers not only with other fitness centres, 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.

Extreme Sports Complex Planned for Florida Locale

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A Florida-based development group has launched plans for an extreme sports action park in Kissimmee, Florida. The park, dubbed The Xero Gravity Action Sports and Entertainment Resort, will include a 14-story ski and snowboard slope, a 25,000-square-foot indoor/outdoor skateboard arena, a USA-BMX-sanctioned racetrack, two sky-diving pods, two 14-story water slides, an indoor dodge ball trampoline court, a 140-foot-tall climbing wall, a river of white-water rapids, and multiple zip lines.
“Extreme sports and sports tourism are booming sectors of the fitness industry,” says Eric Willin, Chief Operating Officer of EZFacility, a sports facility management software developer in Woodbury, New York. “This is exactly the right moment for a park such as the Xero Gravity Action Sports and Entertainment Resort, and, given the other attractions in the area, the proposed location makes good business sense. This is going to be a sports complex to watch.”
The estimated cost of the complex is $309 million, and it is slated to open in 2018. Projected taxable sales for the proposed complex are estimated to be $1.97 billion over a 10-year period. Reportedly, admission to the park will cost between $35 and $95.