On January 7, a Class 2 shitstorm exploded on Reddit when a Planet Health member complained that his native membership had eliminated its solely squat rack. By the use of rationalization, an worker instructed him “a buyer complained that it was intimidating.”
As of Friday morning, the put up had generated greater than 1,400 feedback, and hyperlinks to the rant confirmed up throughout my Fb feed. When my New Guidelines of Lifting coauthor Alwyn Cosgrove wrote about it, his put up obtained 70 shares and greater than 300 likes.
However you already know what the weirdest a part of the story is? {That a} Planet Health franchise nonetheless had a squat rack to take away.
“That’s not a typical Planet Health,” says McCall Gosselin, the corporate’s director of public relations. “Our golf equipment don’t have tools like squat racks and Olympic benches. Our dumbbells solely go as much as 80 kilos.”
Perceive that Gosselin isn’t apologizing for any of this. That is the corporate whose commercials make enjoyable of bodybuilders and gymnasium bunnies, the folks most devoted to critical coaching. That is the place with “lunk alarms” that go off when somebody grunts whereas lifting.
Planet Health isn’t embarrassed to be referred to as the wimpiest gymnasium on the town. It’s the enterprise mannequin, and it really works. Gosselin says the chain has tripled in dimension prior to now 5 years, from 242 golf equipment to greater than 750 by the tip of 2013. They’re in 47 states and Puerto Rico, with greater than 4.5 million members.
Gosselin can also be candid about why it really works: “The gymnasium {industry} was constructed on bodybuilders, individuals who work out a number of occasions every week. Planet Health was based as a spot for the opposite 85 %.”
Or, to be exact, the opposite 82.5 %.
In accordance with IHRSA, the commerce affiliation for the health-club {industry}, gymnasium membership within the U.S. peaked in 2011 at simply over 51 million, or 18 % of the inhabitants. It declined to 17.5 % in 2012. However on the identical time, Planet Health grew.
That’s partly due to the worth. “Gyms that charged $10 a month actually thrived in the course of the recession,” says Stuart Goldman, govt editor of the commerce journal Membership Trade. One other enhance was the corporate’s sponsorship of The Greatest Loser. However there’s additionally no getting across the broad enchantment of its distinctive branding.
“Lots of people aren’t ‘lunkheads,’” Goldman says. “They only need to get in, get on the treadmill for half-hour, and get out. They don’t need to be bothered by anything.”
Thomas Plummer, a fitness-industry guide based mostly in Cape Cod, sees Planet Health as a advertising success however a failure in each different means. “I personally suppose they’re horrible golf equipment that do an amazing disservice to the members and the {industry} as a complete,” he says. “I feel they have been proper for the market 10 years in the past, however the health world is rising previous that mannequin.”
Current information helps his level. In accordance with IHRSA, the usage of most sorts of tools present in Planet Health has declined prior to now a number of years. That features stationary bikes, treadmills, ellipticals, and even weight machines.
What hasn’t declined? Free weights, and train techniques based mostly on free weights, like CrossFit.
None of that makes a damned little bit of distinction to Planet Health. The corporate will not be solely recession-proof, it’s satire-proof. The Each day Present spoofs its lunk alarm, and Planet Health grows. Slate asks why a gymnasium chain needs to intimidate individuals who like to work out, lifters rant on social media about being made to really feel unwelcome on what they thought was their residence turf, and Planet Health simply will increase its market share.
I’ve a concept about why it really works. I’ve been a member of well being golf equipment virtually regularly since 1980. For 20-some years I belonged to franchise gyms – first Vic Tanny, then Vacation Spa, then Bally Complete Health. Every January, I noticed precisely what you’re seeing in your gymnasium this month: a flood of latest members, most of whom won’t ever be seen after Valentine’s Day.
However in contrast to my fellow gymnasium rats, I didn’t resent these folks. I understood that their charges paid for the true value of my membership. Large-box gyms lose cash on folks such as you and me, who pay the identical low worth because the ghost members however really use the tools three or 4 days every week.
And never solely can we use it. We put on it out. We stress cables and pulleys, trample carpets, crack the vinyl on the burden benches. We create further work for the gymnasium employees – tightening screws, changing components, and infrequently eradicating traces of epidermal tissue from a barbell.
If each member educated like us, the gymnasium’s homeowners would both need to multiply charges or exit of enterprise.
At Planet Health, it’s at all times January. They drive away the lifters who could be costly to accommodate, in favor of those that’re least prone to swipe their playing cards various occasions a month. Many, I think, don’t swipe their playing cards in any respect; the $10 month-to-month cost appears a small worth to maintain alive the dream of getting in form.
It might be the perfect enterprise mannequin within the historical past of well being golf equipment: a facility folks pay for however barely use. And the corporate is pleased with that. “We are saying we’re not a gymnasium, we’re Planet Health,” says Gosselin, the corporate’s PR director.
The issue isn’t Planet Health. The corporate is completely clear about what it’s. The issue is individuals who anticipate it to be one thing it isn’t: a spot the place critical lifters get critical exercises. You aren’t prone to get that for simply $10 a month.
Lou Schuler, C.S.C.S., is an award-winning journalist and the coauthor (with Alwyn Cosgrove) of The New Guidelines of Lifting Supercharged.
