I doubt they’ll ever die out, as other have said their is often a social dimension to training, especially with youngsters who train and women IME.
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Yes, people have good intentions, but actually putting on workout clothes and exposing yourself to all the (imagined) judgmental fit people at a gym when here you are, ten years and two kids out from your last jog around the block? Panic-inducing. I would say off the top of my head that when I worked in gyms maybe 50% of memberships were used consistently, while the other half either came in short spurts (then either got sore and went away, or got distracted by life) or never really showed up at all.
It comes up all the time at work for me, people afraid to go to a gym. “I’d feel so out of place,” etc.
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It’s such an irrational fear too! Most people are not even worried about you because they are too fixated on themselves.
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I think gyms will be fine. I’m one of those who bought a lot of equipment during the lockdown and enjoyed my home workouts, but I still love going to the gym, and will probably sell the equipment I bought. It’s great to get out of the house and go to a place that is specifically dedicated to working out. And at least for me personally, I had to quit parking my car in the garage in order to have space to set up my bench and squat racks, so there’s that inconvenience.
I don’t think we’re going to see any permanent shift away from gyms, at least not to a great extent.
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Depends a lot on the gym. My gym owners told me that around 60 percent were regulars, but I doubt that is typical at all. Planet fitness couldn’t survive off of their rates if 50 percent were regulars. Just the pizza alone is half the membership due.
The Tootsie Rolls at the front counter have to be paid for too!
Everyone - thank you so much for your thoughtful replies. Full disclosure, I’m thinking about starting a gym geared towards serious lifters, call it the anti-Planet Fitness. I want tons of power racks, olympic and deadlift platforms, tire dragging areas, etc. I have a full time career I love but I see such an opportunity here that I may give it a shot.
I think you would be well received.
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I belong to one of these gyms. It is profitable and doing well. I will say the gym had about a 10 year period of struggling though before it was doing well.
May I ask their general location? I do think profitability will be quicker to achieve for me given so much of my competition is bankrupt. I also analyze, model, and invest in public companies for a living so I do have a very good business background.
They are in the suburbs of minneapolis. They are doing well now. They got a new part owner that brought in new equipment and did competitions on site. I think the latter really helped bring in some new members.
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My buddy started a pretty cool gym and just sold it to one of his trainers who trained out of there. Small, more free weights than machines. Painted the whole inside black, then paid some local graffiti artists to come in and get drunk and smoke a bunch of weed and do there thing. Coolest looking gym I’ve ever seen. He seemed to let off that it was a great investment. He’s about to open a new mega gym
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