The treadmills in a gym are used more than the average car is used every day and they are 100% more popular than the second most used piece of cardio equipment in your gym, the elliptical.
And if you’ve worked in a gym for over 4 months you know that your precious treadmills have the tendency to break down a lot!
So, what’s the solution, how can you get more equal use across your whole gym, to prevent your treadmills from breaking down, which results in losing members?
That’s where the magic of Client challenges comes in, activity-based challenges to create a buzz amongst your membership base or if you’re a residential gym in the UAE, your tenants and landlords.
One tip before we get into that – rotate your treadmills, there will be treadmills if you have more than 3 that will be used more than others, get the personal trainer in your gym with the biggest biceps to lift the dam things and change the position of them.
So back onto gym challenges to keep your most popular machine, the blessed treadmill to survive until you need to replace all your gym equipment? How do you get your members in a challenge that uses other pieces of equipment apart from your treadmill?
Here’s a few examples of challenges that have worked well in the gym’s I’ve worked in the past:
The Elliptical Iron Man Bike Race
The distance covered on a bike in an Iron man is 112 km, Whattttt did you say – yup! 112 km, come on man, your backside would drop off if you rode 112km right? Well, no, not in this gym challenge. I would suggest you give your members 3 months to complete it with a chance to win a years membership and another exciting prize, promote it like crazy, tell your social media world about it and get your trainers doing 10km sprints at peak time to loud music to internally promote it.
That’s a nice way to get people off your treadmills while increasing membership retention and getting some free social media madness and new members in the process.
Row the English Channel
At its widest, its 240 km. For those of you in the UAE who don’t know it’s the sea that separates England from France.
People even swim the distance, and yes, you guessed it its cold. Well your members don’t have to brave the freezing temperatures and dangerous sees to complete this challenge.
It’s a great way of saving your treadmills from getting damaged and worn out prematurely.
So you get your members to do this on the rowers and give them 8 weeks to complete the challenge, repeat the social media, promotion and marketing steps above and get it in Gulf News as a great bit of free PR.
I hope that has given you a few ways to avoid the ’Out of order signs’ on your treadmills.
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