Wellness = Fitness, Redefined
Fitness has for so long been about just that… fitness; the act of burning calories, losing fat, and building muscle. As an industry, we are intensely innovative with respect to our group and personal programming, pricing models and brand image, yet we approach a new frontier with the emergence of wearables, web enabled tracking software, virtual trainers, and other external innovations created to help motivate our members towards a healthier life. Many of us fear these; we believe this new wave of technology presents our members the opportunity to be fit outside of our club, diminishing club loyalty.
The McKinsey Report puts costs associated with obesity ($2.0 trillion) slightly behind armed conflict ($2.1 trillion) and drug conflict ($2.1 trillion) to round out the three most expensive negative costs on the U.S. This data helps drive innovation within our industry as evidence by the shift of insurance and corporate incentive dollars towards preventative wellness as opposed to reactive, prescription-based medicine. Member goals are shifting focus from losing 10 pounds in a week toward simply living healthier, happier lives for as long as possible. This deviation presents a tremendous opportunity for us to implement new, more comprehensive services for our members like nutritional training, functional movement training, and most exciting of all, new and integrative ways to provide non-invasive wellness assessments — a cornerstone to any wellness program. These programs and assessments are essential elements to promoting health and wellness over the period of a lifetime.
What lies before you is a gap between fitness and wellness. What are you doing to integrate wellness into your club and how are you providing your members with the means to evaluate their wellness? Now the question becomes, will you bridge the gap? Consider all of the opportunities to tap into corporate wellness as well as hospital and insurance referral programs where your cost of member acquisition falls precipitously and integrating wellness programs and their components can only help your bottom line — how can you afford not to?
The concept of fitness is expanding to include the idea of wellness and 3D body scanning technology helps to bridge the gap between the two. This non-invasive, self-use technology acknowledges fitness as a form of medicine, and as an assessment tool encourages members to take action on behalf of their health. Not only is 3D body scanning effective towards reaching short term, fitness oriented goals, it’s various applications also make it an ideal tool to keep your members on track to maintaining wellness for a lifetime.
New technology does not have to be the detriment of your club; in fact, 3D body scanning technology aims to streamline traditional processes or create new ones to improve efficiency as well as integrate seamlessly alongside your evolving, comprehensive suite of programs and services. Although sometimes perceived as unforgiving, 3D imagery paints a vivid picture of the member’s wellness journey from the very start, thus arming trainers and coaches with the kind of knowledge that helps determine which path that journey takes.
The wellness evolution is happening through a perfect storm of education, access to information, and allocated spending shifting from traditional medicine to preventative. Now is your opportunity to set yourself apart from your competition.
