“Limited Access”

In its latest issue, fitness industry magazine Fitness Business Pro features an article about managing risk in 24-hour access health clubs, a type of facility that is becoming more common. Specifically, the issue at hand is how to address laws and ordinances that require facilities to have on the premises at all times a staff member who is CPR certified and/or who can administer an AED in the event of an emergency. These clubs are becoming popular because they’re a win-win for the club owners, who can shave labor costs, and members, who can workout at any time.

I completely understand the need for safety (not to mention that I have no beef with maximizing profit) and think that having risk management plans in place is not only smart business, but the only way to do it. At the same time, I’m a fan of personal responsibility and believe that people should understand the risks, however small, that come with exercising alone in a facility at 2am, and make intelligent decisions based on that information. My only real concern with the latter scenario is that people don’t always make smart decisions (shocking, I know), and their loved ones could end up suffering a devastating loss if they don’t – such as a person who is at high or moderate risk of a cardiac event, even one cleared for exercise, deciding to exercise in a 24/7 facility at an off hour and winds up, by chance, exercising alone.

So I suppose then that I view this as one of my select situations in which health and safety trump individual and commercial freedom. As a facility operator, I’d rather play it safe so that I could be at peace by knowing that I’d be doing what I could to avoid tragic outcomes.

Weekender: Kids Oppose Healthcare

A shocking report delivered by The Onion, America’s finest news source.

The Future of Fitness?

I had lunch yesterday with a colleague and a mentor who was in town, and our conversation at one point turned to corporate fitness, which is the subset of the fitness industry that pertains to work-site health and fitness. I mentioned in a recent post that I think in the coming years companies will likely seek more preventive, fitness-related solutions to their rising health care costs, and one of the points brought up in our discussion was that companies are going to have to go “unconventional” with their employees to get those costs down. One example is a corporate fitness company that does some of their work with small companies that have no fitness facility on site – they simply bring a few pieces of portable equipment to the company and provide personal training sessions for the employees. Not a bad solution for those companies that don’t have the capital to invest in a dedicated fitness area and want to increase chances of employee success over simply subsidizing health club memberships. Heck, if companies really want to increase the chances of success, they could go with the Japanese approach of having mandatory exercise time for all employees at some point in the day, even if it’s only a short stretching session for ergonomic purposes.

This conversation though got me to thinking about what the ideal business model for the fitness industry might be in the future, if such a thing exists. There are definitely a lot of people who belong to a facility of some kind, whether a commercial health club, local municipal facility or YMCA, or university recreation center. However, there’s obviously a disconnect between having access to a facility and using it, as we’ve seen the number of facilities explode over the past 10-15 years while overweight and obesity rates have simultaneously increased. More on-site, corporate facilities could be a solution. Sure, there will always be people who don’t want to exercise where coworkers can see them or who simply want to disconnect their brains from the workplace, but proximity can definitely be a strong influence in a person’s adherence to exercise. Not only that, but companies can incentivize healthy behaviors, such as participation in activities they offer, through insurance premiums. In contrast, as it stands now, the off-site facilities (clubs, YMCAs, etc.) truly have to rely on self-motivated people who are in close proximity either at home or work for their member base, and that model doesn’t look like it’s working so well.

Is a greater presence for corporate fitness the answer? I think that will be a major contributor in the next few years, but I don’t know if it’s “the answer.” I think multiple answers are necessary anyway to reach a broad range of people. We’ll have to cast a wide net and see what we catch.

Trapped Between Supply and Demand

Over the past several months my wife has had a growing interest in macrobiotic cooking, also called whole foods cooking, as an alternative to the typical fast fare that most people eat today at home and on the run, so she grabbed a couple of books on the topic not too long ago to help us give it a go – Cooking the Whole Foods Way (not affiliated with the grocery chain) and The Hip Chick’s Guide to Macrobiotics. (I have to admit that the title and subtitle of the latter book make me feel a bit like Jules Winnfield, although that’s not really accurate in my case since I’m willingly trying this as opposed to trying it by association.) So far it’s been great – I could very well be a victim of the placebo effect, but I’ve felt very good physically and mentally since we started it, and I have to give her credit for researching it and suggesting it.

This weekend I began thinking about the amount of fresh, natural, and unprocessed foods that you buy for such a lifestyle and it got me to thinking about the intersection of two food-based phenomena – the availability and affordability of unhealthy foods in the U.S. and the impact of the current global food shortage. Regarding the first issue, I wrote a bit about food availability in a previous blog, but the basic message is that research suggests that healthier food options (among other healthy lifestyle facilitators) are harder to come by in lower-income neighborhoods than higher-income neighborhoods, and other research tells us that healthier food is also more expensive. As for the second issue, the global food shortage is not likely to hit the U.S. in the form of an actual shortage, but rather in the form of higher prices, which we’ve already been experiencing in recent months due to this, weather-related crop loss, and the misguided push for ethanol. These two factors are related because continued inflation in food prices will drive our society even more toward processed and/or unhealthy (some would say those terms are not separable) foods. Sure, some unhealthy foods may be affected also, such as those with high-fructose corn syrup, but the overall increase in the grocery bill will continue to come via those staples that can be a part of healthy eating – bread, milk, eggs, fruits, vegetables, meat, poultry, and pork.

If this inflationary trend continues, we’re going to see in fairly short order and for a long time to come the reversal of any progress we’ve made in recent years in people making healthier lifestyle choices. Sometimes, as much as people would like to make smart decisions, the checkbook has other ideas.

A Choice That Sticks

Periodically I’ll come across an article that gives readers a few tips on selecting a health club, and found one in Sunday’s edition of The Chicago Tribune (via The Baltimore Sun). The tips are usually helpful, although I’ve noticed some that seem to be most applicable to people in urban areas.

For example, the Trib article references a recommendation from the American Council on Exercise (a health advocacy group and certifying body of fitness professionals) that people find a facility no more than 30 minutes from home or work, which is a sound recommendation based on research. The article does then say that some “experts” suggest that the facility be even closer, and I would have to agree and even stress this point for people who live outside major urban areas. Thirty minutes is fairly realistic if you live in a major metro area, because your frame of reference for travel is set up differently than the rest of the country. Case in point, it’s not unusual for people living and working here in Chicago to spend 30-60 minutes commuting each way. On the other hand, traveling 30 minutes to a facility if you live in a less populated area, like Champaign (which is downstate a bit from Chicago) could be enough of a pain to convince to you skip it at times.

Another tip that may be more applicable to the ‘big city folks’ is to find a facility whose ‘personality’ fits yours. Ideally, finding a personality match with a facility – which is really an easy way to say that you’re matching your preferences with the facility’s offerings and overall brand – would be one of, if not the first major step in choosing a place. There are still areas though where the options are very limited, and you could find yourself choosing between a circuit-based facility (e.g. Curves) and a 3,000 square foot local gym. You won’t hear about this reality in the mainstream media though, because it’s hard to fathom for some news-types whose sole exposure to small-town middle America is what they see on the news. Fortunately, with the growth in the health club industry in the last 15 years, this scenario is becoming less of a challenge as more facilities are available to choose from, but it will take time, and some towns will simply never have viable options.

Two tips though that the article offers and which do apply to prospective club members everywhere are to try a facility first and not to be pressured into signing a contract. On the first, too many people simply take a tour of a facility and then sign up if they like what they see. I agree with the article and also recommend that people check it out during periods they’re likely to go to see how crowded it gets. Regarding the second tip, prospective members of commercial clubs are often told that there’s a current promotion going that is only available that day, or that they’ll toss in a month free or some other add-in, but only for that day. Guess what – each and every month clubs are trying to hit their numbers, so while you may not get the exact same deal later, you can get another deal. Anyone who says otherwise is full of it.

The bottom line is that while finding a facility that fits you is no guarantee that you’ll reach your goals, finding a facility that doesn’t match you is almost surely a guarantee that you won’t reach them.