The fitness world is constantly evolving. There’s always something new, something exciting, something challenging coming. A new product or service to embrace. From the Step Aerobics classes your Mum did in a church hall in the 90’s, to the latest innovations in the Sport of Fitness today.
As an industry, we must embrace these evolutions. And to be fair, we’ve done a great job of it so far.
In this article we’re going to look at the growth of the Sport of Fitness. We’ll look at how competitive fitness moved from the local fun run to the global, multi-billion-dollar industry that exists today.
We’re also going to look at key ways you can embrace it to help your business.
The Sport of Fitness
CrossFit fundamentally changed competitive fitness.
From its conception in the late 90’s, to its explosion in 2000’s onwards, it put a new spin on training.
It resuscitated sports like weightlifting and gave people not only a new way to train, but a new sport to embrace. The gym went from being a place people only visited to get bigger or smaller, and it became a place you went to become an athlete.
The combination of weightlifting, gymnastics, cardio, swimming, powerlifting and the like gave people a whole new approach to training. This naturally led to the question… ‘Who’s the fittest?’
In 2007, the CrossFit games were born. The Sport of Fitness was here to stay.
Fitness competition, before the sport of fitness
Prior to the sport of fitness becoming more widespread, the only well-attended mass-participation fitness events were long distance running races. There were 5- and 10-kilometre races, half marathons, and marathons.
If you had a bike, you might consider cycling races. If you could swim well, you had triathlons or duathlons to consider.
But what about those who wanted a weight training challenge?
There were powerlifting and weightlifting events, but these were about as minority as you could get. The only time people saw weightlifting was on the TV at the Olympics. Powerlifting was even less visible.
CrossFit changed all that.
It was judging fitness across broad time and modal domains. That meant it didn’t matter if you weren’t a specialist in a field, you could still do well if your general game was up to scratch. It encouraged people to push their boundaries, learn new skills and develop a true all-round fitness.
If your running wasn’t fantastic, it didn’t matter - you might be able to make up points on a weightlifting event, or a metcon workout. It opened the doors to people from all fitness backgrounds.
Since then, other versions of the Sport of Fitness have been created. One of the most popular outside of CrossFit is HYROX.
Embracing the sport of fitness as a business
This new growth area has been embraced by the most forward-thinking personal trainers and gyms.
It serves as both a marketing and a retention opportunity. Giving people a ‘why’ that lies beyond the weight loss or muscle building goals is a way to encourage people to train differently and explore more of their capabilities.
It keeps people training for life, not just until they hit a target weight.
Using the growth in the Sport of Fitness as a personal trainer
Aligning your coaching with competition preparation allows you to stand out from the crowd. If you develop programs to help people prepare for HYROX for example, you can offer a service that does beyond weight loss or strength training.
When you become a specialist coach, you open yourself up to different markets. Different opportunities will present themselves as well. You can move into a sport coaching role, blending your fitness expertise with group exercise work.
By offering group coaching programming there is a double marketing win – you can take on more clients, meaning your income goes up.
Additionally, you can offer branded t-shirts or team kit. When your athletes compete in a HYROX event for example, they can do so wearing your logo. If your coaching is effective and your athletes do well, it’s huge kudos for you and your brand.
Using the growth in the Sport of Fitness as a Gym
The opportunities for a gym are huge. By affiliating with a brand such as HYROX or CrossFit, you instantly boost your online presence. You’re effectively buying SEO from a major fitness brand. So, even if it isn’t your core market, affiliating with them is a helpful boost to your online presence.
The next benefit is huge power of retention. Any gym owner knows that past a certain point retention is as important, if not more important than constant new sales. By becoming a specialist centre offering a dedicated training package, or specialist equipment, you automatically boost member retention.
Equipment package is a win as well. Competitive fitness events such as CrossFit and HYROX rely on equipment such as ropes, sleds, barbells, kettlebells, rigs and racks, ski ergs, row ergs etc. These are significantly cheaper than treadmills, recumbent bikes, cross trainers, weights machines and the like.
Finally, as a specialist centre for competitive fitness you open yourself up to new markets. They don’t even have to be your core market, but these types of members are loyal – they’re going to train anyway, so they’ll do it with you. They train as a group, so there’s multiple sign ups. They’re also a great advocate for your facility.
By starting a team from your facility, you will have them kitted out in branded team wear, which is a huge marketing boost. You can spread those points far and wide on social media, not to mention the visibility of lots of people walking around your catchment areas with your logo on.
Capitalising on the growth of the sport of fitness for business
Mass participation events are the perfect opportunity to kit out your athletes in branded teamwear. Not only will your name be seen by potentially thousands of people at the event, but it’ll also be seen by potential clients as your athletes wear it to train in ahead of the competition.
To get your hands on the very best branded fitness clothing around, head to https://www.personaltrainerclothing.co.uk. You can select from our wide stock range and customise your own kit.
Steve Hoyles received his degree in Sports Science from Swansea University. Since then he has spent his entire career working in the fitness industry - personal training and coaching thousands of clients. He now owns MyGym, a strength and conditioning gym in Stockport and works as a fitness copywriter.
