A few days ago, I made the following remark:
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“A narrative pushed, in large parts, by gyms who profit greatly from selling memberships to people who won’t use them.”
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That’s quite the claim, so it would be most ungentlemanly of me not to back it up.
So here’s my proof:
In 2013, I purchased a membership to a now-defunct chain of 24 hour gyms. (There were lots of small, independent 24-hour gym firms with one to a handful of locations attempting to mimic the runaway success of PureGym around this time.)
It was an OK gym.
Situated near the town centre, I’d hazard it was around 3-5000 square feet in size. It had all of the usual accoutrements: A couple of racks, benches, dumbbells up to 50kg, fixed bars, and, of course, a bajillion cardiovascular training machines of varying forms.
(Remember these details, they will be important later.)
The kit wasn’t great (I nearly died once when the rickety squat rack nearly tipped over because it wasn’t bolted to the ground), but it was more than serviceable for someone who trains The Phil Tyreman Way.
It was also deathly quiet, even at peak times which surprised me greatly.
Truth be told, I was a little worried when I signed up because it was quite small for a commercial gym in the middle of town.
My main concerns were that I’d be forever waiting for one of the two racks to become free and would experience harmful spikes in my blood pressure from numpties making a nuisance of themselves in the confined space. (I’ve trained in cramped gyms before and it’s OK so long as everyone knows what they’re doing and respects the place by putting weights away, etc – neither of which tend to happen in “mainstream” gyms.)
However.
Rarely were there more than twenty people in the entire gym. Often, I would be one of maybe five people in the weights section and I can remember a bunch of occasions when I had the entire place to myself.
One day, I asked the manager about this (he was an employee, not an owner).
I wanted to know how many members the gym had because it didn’t make sense to me how they could afford rent, utilities, taxes, maintenance, and so on given their apparently scant membership base.
The answer?
Three thousand.
Or thereabouts.
It gets better:
The manager went on to tell me that only 5% of the members were classed as “active” (meaning they went more than once per week, every week).
According to my maths, that is just 150 out of 3000 people.
How did this happen?
Basically everything in their marketing was designed to appeal to people who didn’t go to the gym, because people who don’t go to the gym don’t use the equipment, dirty the place up, or contribute towards overcrowding.
I will let you be the judge of how ethical that is as a business practice.
On a related note, I am not in the business of hoping clients forget they are subscribed to my service so I can keep raking in that sweet, sweet recurring revenue without doing any work.
(It’s important to me that those who opt to take the plunge get their money’s worth, so I insist on weekly contact with all of my loyal subscribers facilitated by a friendly “check in” email every Monday at the minimum.)
Anyway.
If you are curious about subscribing to my personal training service “The Phil Tyreman Letter”, here’s what you will get:
* A Real Paper newsletter every month (January’s mansplains how to correctly rest and recover from training to spur gains in muscle, strength, and leanness without burning out),
* A physical copy of my book “Lift” (only available to subscribers),
* Personal, private access to Yours Baldly via text, email, and/or voice note for advice, form critiques, explanatory videos, and so on,
* Various other bonuses from time to time.
A subscription is £120 per month, and you must subscribe by 23:59 New Year’s Eve (31st) to get January’s issue of the newsletter.
While the deadline is fast approaching, as of me sending you this email there is still plenty of time to read the sales and Terms and Conditions pages carefully before committing.
Find them here: