F45 Shows Up Fashionably Late To The Strength Party

Better late than never??

After several tumultuous years for the Aussie-based franchise, they are betting on strength training to bring them back to life.

If you haven’t been following the shit show that is F45 since the pandemic, you’ve been missing out on a master class on what NOT to do when rolling out a national franchise.

Everything from falsifying their S-1 documentation when they went public in 2021, superstars David Beckham and Greg Norman suing for promotional fees they were never paid, and the CEO being yanked and replaced with Mark Warburg’s money guy…it’s been an absolute dumpster fire.

But now, F45 is looking to legitimize their strength training by partnering with REP to bring wall-mounted squat racks that will be daisy-chained to conserve on square footage. With the average F45 franchise being approximately 1,800 square feet — this will be pushing the edge of operational capacity, even for me.

Now imagine those TVs being moved, and in their place a series of wall mounted squat racks. They might need to get rid of some of those plastic step up things to make room.

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Will this play work for F45?

While I’m sure this is going to help nudge sales for F45 studios who have had to compete with local competitors like CrossFit, Industrious and BFT (all whom use a barbell in their group class), I don’t think this is a life jacket for F45. This is more like that plank of wood that Rose wouldn’t move over on — too little, too late.

“I’m sorry, Back Squats. There’s just not enough room. But I’ll never let go!”

The problem F45 is going to run into is that anyone within their market that has experienced the barbell at a microgym that was designed to have them will have a superb experience.

With strength training being retrofitted into these tiny studios that were originally designed to have 18 exercise stations, with 2 people at each station, doing battle ropes, plate jumps and other silly bootcamp movements — this is going to be a hard change.

I’m all for it. I want F45 to properly coach people how to squat, deadlift, press, row, etc. with a barbell. I just know that it will take them a while to make this a part of their branding, because right now, NOBODY thinks “Safe, Effective Strength Training” when they think of F45.

Do competing microgyms need to be concerned?

No. Remember, if your “unique” in the marketplace is your equipment or fitness programming, you’re fucked already.

Anybody can replicate your equipment and your workouts. I don’t care how innovative and unique your fitness programming is, it can be easily replaced because you’re forced to publish your IP every day in your group classes.

That means fitness programming is open source and can be grabbed, changed, stolen or blatantly ripped off by anybody.

If you’re concerned about an F45 now adding barbells to their offering and that impacting sales, you were already in trouble — you just didn’t know it.

If you throw enough shit at the wall, something will stick.

This isn’t F45’s only attempt to regain a place in the spotlight of relevancy.

Remember when F45 announced a partnership with Hyrox, offering classes that would prepare you to compete in a Hyrox race? Well that backfired.

Maybe it’s because Hyrox requires 8,000m of running and F45 doesn’t have the space or equipment for members to run? I don’t know, just a thought.

Or, when earlier this year, F45 started rolling out a single sauna and cold plunge into studios with excess square footage to jump on the trendy recovery-bandwagon? Is there anything more useless than a single sauna and cold plunge for a class of 30+ people?

Just picture some sweaty 40-year-old dude sitting there, staring at a trapped female member who is shivering her ass off in the plunge, while she tries not to make eye contact. Yup, this has 5-star Google reviews written all over it.

Closing thoughts.

While I appreciate the new F45 CEO trying anything and everything to spark life back into this company, I ultimately think they have a significant hill to climb if they want to get back to their pre-pandemic reputation and revenue.

Creating an 1,800 square foot fitness model that essentially packages up a modern-day bootcamp workout experience is fine, but then to transform into a recovery-strength-boutique-we-do-it-all experience is where I think the wheels will fall off.

How about you? What do you think about F45’s move? I’d love for you to reply back and share your thoughts.

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If I can ever be of service to you for business consulting or helping you lease or buy a building — I’d love to the opportunity to chat about what you’ve got going on.

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