I’ve come to the conclusion that unless you have one hell of a location, you’d have precisely three people in the gym at any given time.
Like it or not, the “fitness” centers rake 'em in and the hardcore places don’t…which is why the hardcore places (with a few exceptions here and there) have virtually ceased to exist.
Unless it’s marketed as an athletic center of some type or another, in which case you could do very well if you get some local/school teams in there at reduced rates along with some weekend warriors and recreational lifters.
People don’t want to sweat. They don’t want to hurt. They avoid hard work if at all possible and if forced to do something that resembles work they do it once and then never again because it makes them “too sore” or they don’t “want to get too big”.
They want to hop on the elliptical for 10 minutes a couple times a week, maybe do some sort of retarded superset with 20 lb dumbbells while staring at themselves in the mirror and feel good about themselves all week.
After all, they’ve exercised, right? This is literally 9/10ths of the population that even deigns to step foot in a gym in the first place.
Selling the illusion of progress to people will make you just as much money, or even more, than actually helping someone achieve their goals.
The other eight percent or so are gym rats who usually have a reasonable amount of development…and who stopped progressing years ago because they’ve been nursing the same pet routines and muscle groups for years.
So that last two percent? “Hardcore” lifters. People who actually have a goal in mind and will work day in day out to achieve it. Nice to train with, but from a business standpoint they’re (a) customers who demand the most for their money instead of meekly shelling out gym dues for a year (b) they intimidate the half-ass population and motivate the gym rats to spend even more time in the gym and (c) will dump the gym they currently use in a heartbeat if something even slightly better presents itself.
Not, hard as it may be to swallow, the ideal clientele.
In any case, the term “hardcore” seriously needs to be retired, imo. It’s been largely co-opted by the 170 lb skintight-Tapout-tee-wearing douchebag set who think their two plate bench confers Alpha Male status.
We’re lifting fucking weights here, people. Leave the whole mystical journey thing to Henry Rollins and AnimalPak, they write better ad copy.
tl:dr i like to complain about stupid people
