Sweat Equity: COVID Gym Software

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Outsmarting COVID With Gym Management Software

Business management software––it’s only for big-box gyms, right? Wrong!

Business management software is essential for consolidating your business’s day-to-day functions in a singular platform. Whether you are working with five clients or 500, you need management software to stay organized on your end and to keep user experience satisfying on your clients’ end.

Key advantages of gym management software include client management, operations efficiency, and real-time business performance evaluation. You can use management software to increase collaboration with your staff and to monitor your business’s metrics that signal when to flex and scale with trends and growth.

[Related: 17 Gym Management Tips]
COVID-19 has added a layer of complexity to the already-dynamic fitness industry and changes in social protocol are still likely upending your business’s management routine. Fortunately, adapting your business to the nuances of social distancing with Gym Management Software just might be easier than you think.

The Big Shift in Fitness

The entire landscape of the fitness industry has shifted 180-degrees from where it was just one year ago. Virtual training is now the norm and many clients are eager to make the financial commitment of a personalized experience. They want to access their personalized fitness journeys with convenience and autonomy––bookings, on-demand classes, payment options, notifications, reminders, workout logs, assessment data––from their mobile devices.

Here’s how you can use Gym Management Software to streamline your daily management tasks:

• Appointments and booking. Use gym management software to give your members 24-hour, digital access to your services. By offering a combination of virtual training and live-streaming classes you can keep all of your clients engaged while keeping activity socially-distanced.
• Scheduling. Clients can self-book their favorite classes, trainers can manage their own schedules, and you can schedule staff and share calendars from your dashboard.
• Staff management. Empower your staff by giving them real-time access to schedules and changes. Payroll, employee notes, and instant communication are all useful features.
• Business reports. Anticipate your business’s future direction by monitoring all aspects of your business: keep track of attendance to optimize class schedules, secure revenue by keeping member accounts up-to-date, and generate financial reports to monitor areas that need growth or modification.

Don’t let your pre-COVID business practices make you irrelevant. Reduce the need for face-to-face contact and eliminate confusion with hassle-free booking and automated reminders. The right gym management software will provide tools to digitally streamline daily tasks like scheduling, staffing, and client communication––and Gym Management Software that comes with a mobile app will empower you to do it all anytime and from anywhere.

[Related: Fitness Business Management Software Guide]
Where to start? If you’re here, it’s likely that you’re familiar with the work we do at Exercise.com and we’d love to walk you through a live demo of our Gym Management Software (we think it’s pretty great).

Over the past few months, we’ve added more features specifically to help fitness professionals shine during this seemingly neverending pandemic.

To get started, you can contact us for more info.

Apple Has Joined the Fitness Industry

Apple just expanded its tech dominance into the fitness industry (you can check out the press release here). Apple’s Fitness Plus personalized workout subscription service is expected to debut before the end of the year, so here’s what you need to know:

• The app is designed to integrate will all of their products, but requires the Apple Watch (Series 3 model or later)
• The subscription includes unlimited, on-demand access to 10 types of workouts, with the participant’s workout stats monitored and displayed in real-time
• The Apple One bundle will offer virtual classes, on task to compete with Peloton and Nike

Even Peloton issued a “friendly” welcome to its new rival via Twitter:

Friendly competition is in our DNA. Welcome to the world of digital fitness, @Apple.

— Peloton (@onepeloton) September 15, 2020

While the new fitness service will no doubt stir interest and excitement with Apple-enthusiasts, the platform doesn’t intend to compete with personal training or the local gym experience.

Fitness and the Hyper-Local Life

COVID is changing the way we live, especially in urban areas.

The population segments hardest-hit by COVID are those in living metro areas and Hispanic and African-American communities. World Economic Forum’s piece, This Is How Coronavirus Could Reshape Our Cities Forever, makes an interesting case for – and highlights the positives of – urban dwelling in the time of COVID.

But what does this mean for fitness professionals? Embracing the philosophy behind the hyper-local life may make your job a little easier (and maybe even more profitable). While the benefits of hyper-local living include reduced carbon emissions, localized essential movements, and reduced stress, the philosophy’s vision of outdoor mobility is where you, as a fitness professional, can shine.

Here are some simple ways your clients can benefit from hyper-local living even in not-so-urban areas:

• Encourage your clients to get outdoors. Seems like a no-brainer, right? Well, often it’s not. Whether going for a walk at a local park or training in the backyard, build the concept of outdoor fitness into your business’s philosophy and training programs.
• Encourage fresh market shopping (or even gardening). Market shopping reduces packaged-food consumption, the fruit and produce selections are “farm fresh”, and, well, everything just tastes better; not to mention, the outdoor experience stimulates the mood.

The city of 2050: Less smog, more bikes and hyper-local living https://t.co/MCJ25sZjWz Coronavirus lockdowns offer a glimpse at life in a low-carbon future. But why wait until 2050? We could create better place to live now…

— Kim Harding (@kim_harding) June 23, 2020

Helping Clients Who’ve Returned To Old Vices Because of Stress and Anxiety

Fitness professionals aren’t the only ones turned counselors––financial advisors, medical staff, and educators have all seen an increase in anxiety among the populations that they serve.

Chances are, you may have already found yourself talking about work, health, parenting, and routine in general with your clients and in your content.

Not only are many of your members still feeling anxious about returning to social settings, but some may also have returned to some old vices while navigating job loss, homeschooling, and the lack of familiar stress-reducing outlets.

Alcohol, smoking, and over-eating are the top vices that tend to gain traction during seasons of stress.

When you encounter a client that has regressed to certain behaviors, it’s ok to slip into life-coach-mode because traditional fitness coaching––pushing adherence to a training or dieting plan––might not be the right approach when old habits and vices have crept in. Along with modifications to their training program, your client will need behavioral change strategies and serious encouragement.

So where to begin with clients who’ve lapsed back into those old habits they’ve worked so hard to overcome? Employ these relationship strategies for a starting point:

• Communication: consistent communication helps ease back into normalcy
• Grace: don’t judge, but rather discuss barriers to their once-healthy choices
• Encourage: remind them of their long-term goals, but encourage baby-steps
• Adapt: acknowledge their current reality and modify workouts accordingly
• Celebrate: any effort towards recovery and progress is a big deal

Most importantly, know when to encourage your client to seek professional help.

In its article, Coaching Fitness Clients Toward Behavior Change, the NFPT describes the components of behavioral processes, to help understand what motivates change:

• “Helping Relationships: Identifying and relying on social support resources.
  • Example: Your client accepts help from friends so that she can attend exercise sessions without worrying about care for her kids
• Reinforcement Management: Increasing rewards for healthy behavior change; decreasing rewards for engaging in unhealthy behaviors
  • Example: Your client rewards herself for making it to her exercise sessions. She decides to reward herself with a massage twice a month.
• Stimulus Control: Using reminders to engage in healthy behaviors and removing cues to engage in unhealthy practices.
  • Example: A client sets out his workout clothes the night before and packs a healthy lunch for work to avoid the breakroom food options.
• Counterconditioning: Substituting healthy behaviors for unhealthy behaviors.
  • Example: Your client plans a new response to triggers that encourage him to return to old habits. Instead of watching TV on the couch, he does light calisthenics during his favorite program.
• Social Liberation: Engaging with people who help to model newly adopted and healthy behaviors
  • Example: Your client engages socially with other members of their gym and with coworkers who are avid exercisers and gym-goers. They are enjoying feeling happier and more energized.
    Brehm (2014).”

  Changing Behavior During COVID-19

  Changing behavior will include a change in fitness strategy. It’s ok to scrap old goals and side-line previous progress notes. Here are some tools to incorporate while helping your clients make behavior changes while returning to the gym:

  • Clean the slate: replace old goals for new ones
  • Increase the frequency of using logs and/or assessments
  • Recommend wearables to keep fitness at the forefront
  • Reward positive behavior with something that’s meaningful for your client
  • Build new habits: utilize the habit loop theory for cue, craving, response, reward

  [Related: 20 Tips to Motivate Clients to Change Health Behaviors]

  Managing Cues and Triggers

  With all the unfamiliar territory and uncertainties that accompany COVID, managing emotional triggers is most likely your clients’ biggest struggle. Lack of awareness of the cues that trigger emotional responses (like depression, anxiety, tension, and anger) is often what spirals people into negative behaviors.

  Ideafit describes how group fitness can impact efforts to transform behavior. By leveraging the components of the transtheoretical model of behavior change (TTM), you can help your clients prevent regression.

  Don’t Forget About Your Employees

  Check-in with your staff, too. Members and clients aren’t the only ones struggling. Be mindful of stressors in your gym that could intensify an already stressful situation and affect your team’s performance.

  The same strategies that benefit client-trainer relationships can also nurture staff mental wellness and job satisfaction. Keep communication consistent and genuine. Make sure your staff senses your solidarity with, and concern for, them as you jointly weather this storm.

  [Related: These Navy SEAL Techniques Can Help You Lead and Motivate Your Team]

  Anthony Balduzzi on Natural Sleep Patterns

  Our resident interviewer, Schimri Yoyo, sits down with Anthony Balduzzi, founder of Fit Father Project, to discuss the importance of circadian rhythm and sleep patterns.

  Notable Quotes:

  • “We forgot that we are intimately connected with the cycles of everything that’s going on this planet. Humans, we are these bio circadian beings, guess what? Our eyes are designed to be in direct contact with the sun as it rises and it falls. That’s dynamically changing.”
  • “…good sleep starts in the morning. It starts with getting outside, moving your body, getting some blood flow and lymphatic fluid flowing, getting some morning sunlight to entrain your circadian rhythm, which is going to help you sleep later in the day. Sleep also comes down to making sure you’re protecting your eyes later in the day from circadian disruptors like blue light, like having too hot of a room at night.”
  • “And then we have to regulate our bodies in relation to what’s going on outside, but also what’s going on with the other variables with our training. So, sleep needs obviously go up based on your training cycle. People should be paying attention to your body’s feedback signals, like something like morning heart rate, maybe heart rate variability. You get some ideas on how stressed is your body in the morning and how’s that going to impact your sleep needs and you’re auto-regulating constantly. The better you get at training, the less rigid you get, the more auto-regulated you get.”

  Read the full interview here.

  QUICK REPS

  Interesting Internet Finds

  Share these links on your social media platforms for increased reach and engagement

  Taste: We know everyone is ready for their pumpkin spice latte fix, but what about a pumpkin spice smoothie? Pumpkin Spice and Greens Smoothie gives you all the pumpkin pie-feels in an on-the-go breakfast.

  Buy: It’s here! As of September 16, the Apple Watch Series 6 is on the market. The updated model measures blood oxygen level and takes an ECG anytime, anywhere.

  Sweat: Those never-ending find the traffic light captchas driving you nuts? Well, it could be worse? Check out Squat Captcha: The worst (or best?) captcha ever! Forces you to do 10 squats.

  And that’s a wrap! We hope you’ve enjoyed this week’s digital issue of Sweat Equity: Insider Fitness Business Insights. We’ll see you in two weeks! Stay safe. Stay kind. And wash your hands.

  If you’re ready to grow and manage your business better, book a demo with our team today.

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