Fitness Racing Might Be The Retention Boost We Need
And no, they are not trying to “steal” your members…
Want to know why the endurance community never has to worry about retention?
Running is the most popular fitness modality in the world - Accessibility
There’s always a race to sign up for to maintain your motivation. - Public, Mass Participation Events
Unfortunately, your microgym doesn’t have the same going for it.
In fact, if you’ve truly created a unique belief in fitness (UBF) and have settled into a niche, there’s a very strong argument for the following:
Your fitness methodology is one of the least popular in the world.
There is nothing outside of your training floor that members can participate in that directly translates to your specific style of workout.
CrossFit would be the only exception to the first point, as they have literally paved the way for every other functional fitness methodology that exists today. And while CrossFit the methodology is certainly accessible by anyone (assuming it’s coached properly), CrossFit the sport is not.
The second point still stands strong, even when considering their global adoption.
”But Stu, what about the CrossFit Open?”
3 workouts over 3 weeks, performed privately inside of a gym, does not equate to the same retention opportunity that universally accessible, mass participation events do.
CrossFit and the CrossFit Open are not even in the same conversation as running and signing up for 5Ks, Half, or Full Marathons when it comes to accessibility and mass participation events.
Retention has more to do with the client than the business.
Don’t get me wrong. Niching-in and solving a specific problem with a UBF is still the way to go if you want to be successful in an oversaturated market. Still, the X-factor for retention has nothing to do with your coaching.
When you realize your utilization rates are down, it’s not always due to a lack of excellence on the business side.
And if you’re not familiar with utilization rates (class attendance), how to track them, and how to grow those slow class times - a brand new course was just uploaded to Microgym Univeristy. Now you have no excuse as to why your 7 am class only has 3 people in it.
But back to my point.
Gym owners need to stop assuming every cancellation is due to something they did wrong or could even control.
There are four reasons for cancellation, and only one is within your control from a coaching or programming standpoint. The others are life factors that you can do absolutely nothing about.
Convenience - “This location is no longer convenient because I moved, scheduled changed, etc.”.
Cost - “I either can’t afford this anymore, or I choose not to spend my money on it anymore.”
Injury - “I either can’t participate, or I don’t believe you can modify this so I can.”
Change of Interest - “I’m a fickle human, and I’m trying out other fitness.”
However, an External Motivating Force is the number one factor that drives retention more than your incredible coaching, programming, or community.
If a member has an external motivating force greater than their own self-preservation, they are more likely to stay retained at your gym if they believe your UBF will help them achieve their end goal.
Simply the need to be fit and healthy is not enough. As we’re all well aware, self-preservation is obviously not the greatest external motivating factor. If it were, the U.S. wouldn’t be the most obese and sickest country in the world.
Participating in rewarding, social status-earning feats of physical accomplishment in which the event costs money, is held publicly, and must be trained for to achieve their desired success, is a far better way to keep members engaged with your service.
Fitness racing to the rescue.
Until now, what would anyone attending a modern-day microgym do to celebrate their fitness outside of the training floor?
Some of your members would take up an auxiliary sporting endeavor like BJJ, rock climbing, or maybe golf.
Others might get into OCR (Obstacle Course Racing). In fact, a shit ton of people are doing that. While there are many OCR races, the Spartan brand alone draws in nearly 1.2MM participants yearly.
But the most likely pursuit of celebrating one’s fitness outside of the gym is done by signing up for a race. Annually, 1.3MM people sign up for a marathon; within the US, 8MM people sign up for a 5K.
But are any of these pursuits helping to keep your monthly retention high?
Only if the member believes your UBF will help them achieve their auxiliary fitness goal.
However, when it comes to almost every auxiliary sporting endeavor out there, the odds are that your UBF is not the perfect fit due to its lack of specificity. This may result in members canceling to focus on their marathon training or getting into more rolls with training partners at BJJ.
This is where fitness racing, as an accessible, mass-participation event, steps in to save the day.
What is fitness racing?
Imagine if OCR, CrossFit, and the marathon had a hot + nasty threesome that created a baby.
That baby would be fitness racing.
This genre of events is characterized by using functional fitness movements in a race-like format that is typical of an endurance-type duration.
Brands like Hyrox and DekaFit are currently leading the charge in this infancy genre, but I’m confident that more prominent brands will start to create their versions of fitness races too.
I was recently invited to meet with the co-founder of Hyrox, Mo Fuerste. He gave me a full tour and breakdown of the race, the business side of this genre, and how they plan to grow this sport. You can catch the full conversation here.
Hyrox’s event is universal (like the marathon) in that it’s the same race every time - allowing participants to evaluate their improvement race-to-race consistently. It uses low-complexity functional fitness movements that require almost zero technical coaching (like OCR), and they utilize age-based categories for both individual and doubles, amateur and pro divisions, and live leaderboards at the events to bring out your competitive side (like CrossFit).
For reference, here’s what a Hyrox race looks like at the pro division. The open division (amateur) is exactly the same format, except the loads are less.
1km Run
1000m SkiErg
1km Run
50m Sled Push (445lb M / 335lb W)
1km Run
50m Sled Pull (335lb M / 225lb W)
1km Run
80m Burpee Borad Jump
1km Run
1000m Row
1km Run
200m Farmers Carry (70lbs M / 53lb W)
1km Run
100m Sandbag Lunge (65lb M / 45lb W)
1km Run
100 WallBall (20lb M / 14lb W)
I don’t care if you’re MADabolic, a CrossFit affiliate, or Orangetheory - an accessible, mass participation event like this would be appealing to the majority of your members, and if they signed up, paid money and had a race date on the calendar - my guess is you would probably be able to retain them more efficiently when combined with your traditional retention efforts.
Fitness racing brands are NOT a threat to your microgym.
Many microgym owners instantly pucker up at the idea of their members participating in these events.
For some reason, they think their members doing anything in fitness outside of their UBF is a threat.
Those short-sighted owners won’t last long in our industry. But for the ones who are reading this now, here are a few thoughts that will hopefully change your bitchass perspective.
Fitness racing is not a fitness methodology.
They are accessible mass-participation events that aim to create opportunities for your members to celebrate the fitness they’ve earned at your microgym.
They are not interested in opening up gyms to compete with you.
However, they have affiliation opportunities much like USAW that would allow you to host trainings, certifications, and include SEO language on your website for those searching to train for a specific fitness race.
You’re the reason this genre of racing exists.
The boom of CrossFit and every functional fitness gym that came afterward has created millions of people performing functional fitness. Yet, they have nowhere outside of your gym to celebrate or compete. Now that problem is solved.
More people participating in fitness racing = more people doing functional fitness.
The proof of concept is already present in running and the marathon.
The most amount of people in the world run - as part of, if not their whole fitness routine.
The most amount of people also participate in 5Ks, Half or Full Marathons.
Wouldn’t you love the same to be true for functional fitness?
Can you not connect the dots and see how this benefits your business?
I’ll be enthusiastically watching and rooting for the success of these fitness racing brands as I believe they could be the ultimate retention tool for your microgym.
Great article! We had good participation doing a similar set up at The Arnold last weekend in Columbus. ERG's in place of running and the sleds killed people!!!