Could Charging Your Most Loyal Members Less Actually Make Your Gym More Profitable?

Could Charging Your Most Loyal Members Less Actually Make Your Gym More Profitable?

I came across an idea recently that genuinely intrigued me, and the more I've thought about it, the more I wonder whether it could offer an interesting alternative approach to gym membership retention.

Anyone who has followed my articles over the years will know that I'm a big believer in increasing membership prices annually. I've written extensively about why I believe operators need to protect their average yield, keep pace with rising operating costs and stop being frightened of reasonable price increases. Too many gyms have spent years absorbing higher wages, rent, rates, utilities and other costs without making corresponding adjustments to their membership pricing.

I haven't changed my opinion on that. I still believe annual price reviews are fundamental to running a financially sustainable fitness business.

But what if we approached our longest-serving members differently?

What if, instead of increasing their membership every year, we actually rewarded their loyalty by gradually reducing what they pay?

Not immediately, and certainly not indefinitely. But perhaps after someone has completed two years of membership, we offer them a small annual reduction in exchange for committing to another 12 months.

At first glance, that sounds completely counterintuitive. Why would a gym deliberately reduce the price paid by someone who is already a customer? Surely that's giving away revenue unnecessarily?

Possibly. But I think there's a much more interesting question to consider.

What if the additional membership lifetime created by rewarding loyalty was worth considerably more than the discount itself?

And perhaps just as importantly, what message would that send to members about how much we value their continued business?

Why This Idea Might Be More Interesting Than It First Appears

The timing of the proposed reward is particularly interesting when you look at the research.

Xplor Gym's 2023 Winning the War on Attrition report analysed membership behaviour across a large UK and Ireland dataset. Among members who cancelled, the average membership duration was approximately 26 months, while their last recorded visit occurred at approximately 21 months. In other words, those members typically stopped attending around five months before they actually cancelled

That makes the two-year anniversary a potentially important intervention point. By that stage, many members have established a relationship with the club, but others may already be questioning whether they're getting sufficient value from their membership.

What if, rather than waiting for them to become disengaged, we gave them another reason to stay?

Imagine receiving a message from your gym after two years saying:

"Thank you for being part of our club for the last two years. We genuinely value your loyalty, so we'd like to offer you something different. If you choose to stay with us for another 12 months, we'll reduce your monthly membership fee. And the longer you remain a member, the more we'll reward you, up to an agreed maximum discount."

I think that could be an incredibly powerful message.

We're used to seeing businesses offer their best deals to new customers while existing customers quietly pay more. It's something that frustrates consumers across numerous industries, whether that's insurance, broadband, mobile phones or subscriptions.

This would reverse that perception. Instead of feeling that loyalty is taken for granted, members would see a tangible financial benefit from maintaining their relationship with the club.

And unlike a free guest pass, branded water bottle or occasional reward, this would be something they benefit from every single month.

Of course, the obvious concern is the revenue we're giving away. But that's where the mathematics becomes interesting.

Could a Lower Membership Price Actually Generate More Revenue?

Let's use a deliberately simple example of a gym charging £50 per month.

Under the existing model, the member continues paying £50 throughout their membership. Under the proposed loyalty model, after completing two years, they become eligible for a £2 monthly reduction each year, provided they voluntarily agree to a new 12-month membership term. The discount would be capped at £6 per month, meaning their membership would never fall below £44 under this particular scheme.

The proposed pricing would look like this

The figures are illustrative, but the principle is straightforward. A member reaching their third year saves £24 annually, increasing to £48 in year four and £72 in year five. The club retains a meaningful monthly membership payment, while the member sees a financial reward for their loyalty.

Now let's examine the commercial impact across a group of 100 members who have already completed their first two years.

For this example, we'll assume the club would ordinarily retain 65% of those members from one year to the next. Under the loyalty programme, let's test what happens if annual retention improves to 75%.

These are hypothetical retention assumptions, not proven effects of a loyalty discount. The purpose is to establish whether the financial logic could work and what improvement would be needed to justify the discount.

scenario, despite charging members less, the loyalty model generates £4,350 more membership revenue over the three-year period, equivalent to an increase of approximately 3.5%.

That may not sound transformational in isolation, but remember we're looking at just 100 members entering their third year. Across a larger membership base, the opportunity could become considerably more meaningful.

What's also interesting is that the loyalty model initially performs worse. In year three, the club gives away £2,400 in membership revenue compared with the standard pricing model. However, by years four and five, the higher number of retained members more than compensates for those reductions.

The model assumes the same initial 100 members, full-year payments from those retained at each annual boundary, no new joiners or rejoiners, and no general price increases. It measures revenue rather than profit and excludes any additional servicing costs or secondary spend.

The real question, therefore, isn't simply how much the discount costs.

It's whether the discount produces enough additional retention to outweigh that cost.

How Much Would Retention Actually Need to Improve?

This is where I'd want operators to look carefully at their own data rather than simply adopting the concept because it sounds attractive.

In the example above, we've assumed that annual retention improves from 65% to 75%. That's a ten-percentage-point improvement, and we certainly shouldn't assume that a small discount will automatically achieve it.

Using the same pricing structure and starting cohort, the loyalty programme would need to achieve approximately 72.5% annual retention to match the £124,350 generated by the standard model over years three to five.

That means an improvement of around 7.5 percentage points would be required just to break even on membership revenue. Anything above that starts creating additional revenue, before accounting for secondary spend, acquisition savings and other commercial effects.

The precise threshold will vary enormously between clubs. A facility already retaining 90% of its established members may find the discount difficult to justify, while a club losing a substantial proportion of members around their second anniversary may see a very different opportunity.

And there's another consideration: a club that already has excellent retention could end up rewarding hundreds of members who would have stayed anyway. In that situation, the scheme becomes a reduction in average yield rather than a genuine retention improvement.

That's why I would never introduce something like this without modelling it properly.

What Does the Research Tell Us About Loyalty and Retention?

Although the financial model is hypothetical, there is established evidence that member behaviour, engagement and relationships are strongly associated with retention.

The TRP 10,000 research found that members who attended their gym at least once during a month were less likely to cancel than members who didn't attend. Among members in their first six months, attending at least once during a month was associated with a 27% reduction in the likelihood of cancelling the following month.

More recent research published in the Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services in 2026 also examined the relationships between service quality, rapport, satisfaction and membership retention, reinforcing the importance of how members perceive and experience their relationship with their club.

Interestingly, Xplor's September 2026 industry research found that 70% of surveyed operators with UK locations reported rising member acquisition costs, making retention and referrals increasingly important commercially.

None of these studies proves that reducing membership prices will improve retention. That's an important distinction. But they do reinforce why strengthening the member relationship and extending membership lifetime are commercially valuable objectives.

My thinking is that a financial loyalty reward could become another component of that relationship, particularly when combined with the things we already know matter: good onboarding, meaningful staff interaction, regular attendance, progress reviews, community and member recognition.

I wouldn't want the discount to replace any of those things. I'd want it to complement them.

The Psychology Could Be Just as Interesting as the Financial Benefit

I think one of the strongest aspects of this idea is the perception it creates.

Most gym members expect their membership to increase over time. They understand that costs rise, even if they don't particularly enjoy receiving the annual price-increase email.

Imagine how different it would feel if, after two years, they received an email thanking them for their loyalty and explaining that their membership would actually become cheaper if they chose to commit for another year.

For a member paying £50 a month, saving £2 might not fundamentally change their financial circumstances. But the recognition behind it could be worth considerably more than £24 a year in perceived value.

It communicates that the club appreciates existing customers rather than concentrating all its incentives on attracting new ones.

It also creates something to look forward to. A member approaching their second anniversary knows they're about to become eligible for a loyalty benefit, while someone entering year three understands that another reward becomes available if they remain.

There's potentially a referral benefit too. Members who feel genuinely appreciated may be more inclined to recommend the business, although that would need to be measured rather than assumed.

Of course, the way we communicate this would be crucial. If we advertise it as a complicated discount mechanism, it could simply look like another membership promotion. If we present it as a genuine thank-you for supporting the club over several years, I think it becomes a much more meaningful part of the member experience.

The 12-Month Commitment Is an Important Part of the Proposition

I wouldn't necessarily offer these reductions unconditionally.

My preference would be to make the loyalty discount available to members who have completed their first two years and voluntarily agree to a further 12-month membership commitment.

The arrangement could then be reviewed at each subsequent anniversary, with another small reduction available in exchange for a new 12-month agreement, until the maximum discount has been reached.

This provides a clear exchange of value. The member receives a lower monthly price, while the club gains greater contractual revenue visibility and a further opportunity to strengthen the relationship.

However, the terms would need to be fair, transparent and compliant with consumer law. Members must understand what they're agreeing to, and appropriate cancellation rights, including provisions for relevant changes in circumstances, must be respected. The Competition and Markets Authority has previously challenged unfair gym membership terms, and its guidance cautions against automatic renewals that unexpectedly lock consumers into further minimum periods.

I would therefore favour an actively accepted renewal rather than automatically locking somebody into another 12 months. Members who don't want the new commitment could remain on an appropriate rolling membership without the additional loyalty reduction.

The commercial benefit should come from members positively choosing to stay, not from making it difficult for them to leave.

Would This Conflict With Annual Price Increases?

This is probably the part I find most interesting because, as I mentioned at the beginning, I'm a strong advocate of annual membership price increases.

The two approaches don't necessarily have to be mutually exclusive.

A club could continue reviewing and increasing its standard membership prices each year while offering a clearly defined loyalty benefit to longer-serving members. New members would join at the prevailing rate, while qualifying established members would receive a discount against an agreed reference price or tariff.

Alternatively, operators could apply smaller annual increases to loyalty members rather than reducing their actual monthly payments.

Both approaches have merit, but they create different financial outcomes and different member perceptions.

Personally, the idea of an actual reduction is what intrigues me most. There is something psychologically powerful about telling a loyal customer that their monthly payment is going down rather than simply increasing by less than everybody else's.

However, any scheme would need a clearly defined floor price, a maximum discount and an agreed approach to future inflation. Otherwise, over a long enough period, the operator could end up with a substantial proportion of the membership base paying prices that no longer reflect the cost of providing the service.

I'd also want to understand how the programme affects average yield across the entire club, not just among the members receiving the discount.

What Would I Want to Test Before Introducing It?

If I were advising a club considering this, I wouldn't immediately offer it to every member reaching their second anniversary.

I'd start by examining the club's actual retention data, particularly the percentage of members who survive from month 24 to month 36, and then from year three into years four and five.

I'd look at whether cancellation risk increases around those anniversaries, how attendance changes beforehand and how long members remain after completing their initial contract.

I'd also examine whether the club's most loyal members are already highly engaged. If they are, the discount might simply reward behaviour that would have happened anyway.

The strongest way to establish whether this works would be a controlled pilot. For example, a club could randomly allocate eligible members between its existing renewal approach and the new loyalty offer, with appropriate safeguards and transparent communication.

The club could then compare renewal rates, subsequent cancellations, average yield, membership revenue, secondary spend and overall contribution over a meaningful period.

I'd be particularly interested in whether members who accept the loyalty offer actually remain active or whether the programme simply encourages people to keep paying for something they no longer use.

Those are very different outcomes, especially if we're serious about creating healthier, more engaged membership communities.

And because the programme requires a 12-month commitment, we'd need to measure what happens after that commitment expires, not just the initial renewal rate.

Could the Real Opportunity Be Bigger Than the Discount?

One final consideration is the additional value of a longer-serving member.

Someone who remains with your club for another two years doesn't simply generate more membership revenue. They may also purchase personal training, join specialist programmes, spend money on retail or recovery services and recommend friends or family.

Longer membership relationships can also reduce the pressure to replace lost customers through paid advertising, although any genuine acquisition savings depend on how the club manages its marketing budget and growth targets.

These potential benefits haven't been included in the financial example, so they could improve the commercial case. Equally, if the discount simply delays cancellation without maintaining engagement, the additional value may be much smaller than anticipated.

That's why I'd want to assess the complete lifetime value and contribution of the member, rather than simply focusing on the monthly direct debit.

So, Would I Actually Recommend It?

At this stage, I wouldn't say yes or no.

But I would absolutely say it's worth exploring.

I've spent years encouraging gym operators to increase prices appropriately, improve average yield and stop undervaluing their services. I still believe in all of those principles.

However, I've also spent years talking about the importance of retention, member relationships and lifetime value. If a carefully structured loyalty programme could extend the average membership lifetime sufficiently to generate more revenue and improve the member experience, then surely it's worth investigating.

The figures demonstrate that the economics can work under certain conditions. They don't yet demonstrate that a loyalty discount will deliver the required improvement in retention, and that's the part we'd need to test.

Perhaps the greatest attraction is that it challenges the traditional way we think about membership pricing. Instead of assuming that every customer should always pay more as time passes, we start asking whether some of our most valuable customers should be rewarded for the longevity of their relationship with us.

After all, if somebody has supported your business for five years, attended regularly, engaged with your team and contributed to your community, there's a reasonable argument that their loyalty deserves recognition.

And if recognising that loyalty also makes commercial sense, we may have found something that benefits both the member and the operator.

So here's my question to gym owners and operators:

What if, rather than automatically charging your longest-serving members more every year, you rewarded them by gradually charging them less?

Would it improve retention, strengthen loyalty and increase lifetime value, or would we simply be giving away revenue to members who were going to stay anyway?

Could reducing your membership prices for your most loyal customers actually become one of your most profitable retention strategies?

I'd genuinely love to hear what other operators think, particularly anyone who has experimented with something similar.

---

Ryan Charlesworth | Black raccoon Consulting | www.blackraccoon.org

 

Almost Half of Adults Have a Long-Term Health Condition. Is the Fitness Industry Really Designed for Them?

There is a statistic that should make everyone working in the fitness industry stop and think. According to the latest Health Survey for England, 46% of adults aged 16 and over have at least one longstanding illness or health condition. The most commonly reported categories include musculoskeletal conditions, mental, behavioural and neurodevelopmental conditions, heart and circulatory conditions, diabetes and other metabolic conditions, and respiratory conditions. The same research found that 26% of adults reported chronic pain.

That's almost half of the adult population, and it raises an important question for our industry: does what we've built genuinely feel designed for them?

I'm certainly not suggesting that everyone with a long-term health condition needs a specialist gym or is incapable of using a conventional facility. "Longstanding condition" covers an enormous spectrum, from conditions that have relatively little impact on everyday life to illnesses that fundamentally change what somebody is capable of doing. But that's precisely the point. If almost half of adults live with some form of long-term health condition, perhaps the "average member" we've traditionally designed gyms around doesn't really exist anymore.

I also understand this subject from a very different perspective now. I've spent more than 25 years working in fitness, but I also live with ME/CFS, and that experience has changed my perspective on exercise more than almost anything I've learned during my career.

When You Work in Fitness, Exercise Seems Like the Obvious Answer

I've spent most of my adult life believing in exercise. I've built businesses around it, helped gyms grow and worked with personal trainers, operators, franchises and health clubs. I understand programming, progression, consistency and the enormous benefits that physical activity can provide.

Then you experience a chronic illness yourself and things suddenly become much more complicated.

Living with ME/CFS has shown me just how difficult the relationship with exercise can become when your body no longer responds in the way you expect. There are times when I want to train and mentally feel capable of doing so. Years of working in fitness tell me to get on with it, but I also know that what I do today can have consequences tomorrow or even the day after.

One of the defining characteristics of ME/CFS is post-exertional malaise, or PEM. NICE describes this as a worsening of symptoms following activity, which can be physical, cognitive, emotional or social. That deterioration can be delayed by 12 to 48 hours and can last for days or even weeks.

For somebody who has spent their career in fitness, that's a very different and sometimes incredibly frustrating relationship with exercise. We're conditioned to think about progression: another rep, a little more weight, another five minutes, greater consistency and improving on last week. In most circumstances those are perfectly sensible principles, but with ME/CFS, sometimes the smartest decision I can make is not to push myself.

That experience has taught me something I think our industry needs to understand much better. Exercise can be incredibly powerful, but exercise isn't one universal prescription.

"Just Exercise More" Isn't Good Enough

The updated UK Chief Medical Officers' physical activity guidance reinforces the enormous benefits of physical activity. At population level, some of the greatest proportional health gains can come from helping inactive people become more active, while maintaining strength and balance is increasingly important throughout life.

However, population-level guidance and what is appropriate for an individual with a particular medical condition aren't necessarily the same thing.

ME/CFS demonstrates that particularly well. NICE specifically advises that people with ME/CFS shouldn't simply be told to go to the gym or exercise more because doing so can worsen symptoms. It also advises against programmes based on fixed incremental increases in activity, including the approach it defines as graded exercise therapy. Where exercise is appropriate, the approach needs to recognise the individual's current energy limits, symptoms and medical circumstances.

The answer isn't for gyms to become frightened of helping people with health conditions. It's for our industry to become better educated about where and how we can help, what expertise we need and where our professional boundaries lie.

Long-Term Health Conditions Aren't One Market

We also need to stop talking about people with chronic conditions as though they're one demographic.

Someone with controlled hypertension may have completely different requirements from somebody living with severe chronic pain. Someone with arthritis isn't the same as someone recovering from cancer treatment. Someone living with depression isn't the same as somebody with COPD, and someone taking GLP-1 medication isn't the same as somebody living with ME/CFS.

Even two people with exactly the same diagnosis can have completely different capabilities.

Sport England has made a similar point in its work around health conditions: this isn't a homogeneous group. Barriers can include confidence, cost, time, uncertainty about where to go and a lack of appropriate opportunities, while people with long-term conditions or disabilities are significantly more likely to be physically inactive.

So simply adding a "chronic conditions membership" isn't the answer. Personalisation has to sit at the centre of the solution.

Perhaps We Need to Ask Better Questions

Traditional fitness assessments tend to focus on goals, weight loss, previous exercise experience, current fitness and how often somebody intends to train. They're all useful questions, but supporting someone living with a long-term condition may require a much broader conversation.

We may need to understand how activity affects them afterwards, what makes their symptoms better or worse, what a good day and a bad day look like, whether they're frightened of exercise and what their healthcare team has advised. Most importantly, we need to understand what success actually means to that individual.

Success doesn't necessarily mean losing three stone or running 10K. It might mean walking upstairs without stopping, playing with grandchildren, returning to gardening, getting out of a chair more comfortably, going shopping independently, maintaining strength while losing weight or simply having enough confidence to get out of the house.

For somebody with ME/CFS, measuring what happened during the workout may tell you very little. The important information might come 24 or 48 hours afterwards. Did that activity improve their life, or did recovering from it consume the rest of their week?

That's a very different definition of a successful exercise session, but perhaps it's a much better one.

Are We Marketing Fitness to These People Properly?

This is where I think the fitness industry needs to take a critical look at itself.

Think about how much fitness marketing still revolves around getting ripped, burning calories, pushing harder, smashing goals, having "no excuses" and transforming your body. There is a market for that language and I'm not suggesting we eliminate it, but it certainly doesn't speak to everybody.

Imagine you're 58 with chronic pain and haven't exercised for 15 years. Perhaps you're 70 and worried about losing your independence, you've recently completed cancer treatment, you're struggling with depression, or you're living with an illness that means your energy can fluctuate dramatically from one day to the next.

Does "NO EXCUSES" make you feel understood?

Probably not. In fact, it may reinforce the belief that gyms aren't designed for people like you.

This is why I think we need to stop simply selling fitness and start selling what appropriate fitness and physical activity can enable.

An experienced 25-year-old exerciser might primarily want access to equipment. Somebody living with a long-term health condition may be looking for independence, confidence, strength, mobility, energy, connection, support or a better quality of life. They might want to continue working, play with their children, walk the dog or remain independent in their own home as they get older.

Those are incredibly powerful outcomes, and the fitness industry already has many of the tools required to help deliver them. We may simply need to package and communicate those tools differently.

Create Pathways, Not Just Memberships

One of the biggest opportunities for established gyms is to stop assuming everybody should enter through exactly the same membership journey.

Why couldn't a club offer a Return to Exercise programme, Strength for Life, Healthy Ageing, Back to Movement, Beginner Strength, Move More or GLP-1 Exercise Support? These don't necessarily need to become permanent membership categories. They could be six, eight or twelve-week supported pathways designed to bridge the enormous gap between doing nothing and becoming a confident conventional gym member.

A pathway could include an initial consultation, appropriate baseline measurements, simple programming, coached sessions, regular check-ins, progress reviews and a carefully managed transition into mainstream membership.

You haven't necessarily changed the gym. You've changed how somebody enters it.

This is actually something we've already discussed in relation to the wider market. The fitness industry has traditionally spent considerable effort designing products for people already comfortable with exercise, while there is a substantial population who may require a very different route into the facility.

Onboarding Becomes Far More Important

For an experienced exerciser, onboarding may amount to an access card and an app login. For somebody who hasn't exercised for 20 years, that's nowhere near enough.

They need to know what to do, where to go and who to ask. They may need reassurance that they aren't going to look stupid, somebody to notice when they haven't attended and early evidence that what they're doing is working. Above all, they need to feel that somebody actually cares whether they succeed.

I'd build a structured first 90-day journey around that principle. It might include an initial consultation, coached first session, follow-up during the first week, two-week check-in, 30-day review and further progress reviews. The objective isn't necessarily to make them exercise more. It's to support them better.

And that support should adapt to the individual rather than expecting the individual to adapt to the system.

Technology and Human Contact Should Work Together

Technology has a huge role to play in making this scalable.

Your CRM knows when somebody joined. Your access-control system knows whether they've attended. Your app may know what they've done and your automation system can identify behavioural changes and deliver appropriate communication.

Imagine somebody who normally attends twice a week suddenly hasn't attended for ten days. Something should happen.

That might be an automated check-in, but it might also be an automated trigger that creates a task for somebody on the team to call them personally. The system identifies the change and makes sure it isn't missed, while a human being provides the conversation and support.

That's where I believe technology becomes incredibly powerful. Automate what should be consistent and personalise what should be human.

We could take this further. Where appropriate, technology could help record energy, symptoms, recovery and perceived exertion rather than only workouts, weights and calories. Sometimes the most important question isn't "How much did you do?" but "How did doing it affect you?"

Programming Doesn't Have to Be Complicated

Fitness professionals sometimes confuse complexity with quality. A programme isn't automatically better because it contains 14 exercises and sophisticated periodisation.

For somebody returning to activity after years away, simplicity can be incredibly valuable. Perhaps it's five exercises and 20 minutes. Maybe they start with machines, train once a week, walk or join a small group. The programme might need to change depending on how they're feeling and what is appropriate for their condition.

For some conditions, including ME/CFS, a conventional progressive exercise programme may not be appropriate at all without specialist clinical oversight. That's where professional competence becomes incredibly important.

Sometimes the best fitness professional isn't the one who knows the cleverest programme. It's the one who knows when they aren't the right person to provide it.

Strength Could Become One of Our Most Important Products

One area where I think the fitness industry has an enormous opportunity is strength.

We've spent decades marketing resistance training through bodybuilding, aesthetics and performance, but strength means far more than building muscle for appearance. It's about getting out of a chair, carrying shopping, climbing stairs, maintaining balance, preserving function and remaining independent.

That gives us a completely different way of marketing exactly the same equipment.

Instead of selling "build muscle", perhaps we sell "stay strong enough to keep doing the things you love."

The equipment hasn't changed. The conversation has.

And potentially, so has the market we're capable of reaching.

GLP-1s Create Another Significant Opportunity

The rapid growth of GLP-1 weight-management medications makes this discussion even more relevant. People losing significant amounts of weight may need appropriate support around maintaining strength, muscle and sustainable lifestyle behaviours.

Here is a growing population actively investing in improving their health, some of whom may have limited previous experience of exercise. They may need help becoming stronger, accountability, support establishing sustainable habits and an environment that doesn't judge them.

The fitness industry could be extremely well positioned to help, provided we stay within our professional scope. That doesn't mean gyms prescribing medication or straying into clinical advice. It means building credible exercise and lifestyle-support services and developing relationships with healthcare professionals where appropriate.

Beginner Classes Need to Feel Like Beginner Classes

Look at the average gym timetable: HIIT, Bootcamp, MetCon, Body Blast, Extreme Conditioning. Now imagine being 65, living with arthritis and having never exercised properly before. Where exactly do you start?

There's nothing wrong with keeping the high-intensity classes, but we could put something alongside them: Beginner Strength, Move Better, Back to Exercise, Strength for Life, Healthy Ageing, Low-Impact Fitness, Introduction to the Gym or Mobility and Movement.

Sometimes the actual exercise doesn't need to change dramatically. The perceived accessibility does.

People should be able to look at your timetable and immediately identify somewhere they feel they belong.

Our Teams Need Different Skills Too

If we're serious about serving this market, team development becomes critical.

Technical fitness knowledge matters enormously, but so do empathy, listening and communication. Can your team comfortably talk to a nervous 70-year-old beginner? Can they explain an exercise without jargon? Do they understand that somebody with a fluctuating illness might manage something one week and struggle with it the next? Can they recognise red flags and understand the limits of their professional scope?

Most importantly, can they listen without immediately assuming they know the answer?

Living with ME/CFS has taught me how important that last point is. The person living with the condition knows things about their body that a fitness professional cannot learn from a textbook.

Listen to them.

Fitness and Healthcare Need to Work More Closely Together

This could be one of the biggest long-term opportunities for our sector.

Fitness and healthcare still operate too independently of one another, despite appropriate physical activity playing an important role in preventing and managing many long-term conditions.

Why shouldn't more gyms build credible relationships with GP practices, physiotherapists, social prescribers, weight-management services, cancer-support organisations, local authorities, healthcare charities, pharmacies and employers?

The objective isn't for gyms to become hospitals. It's for fitness businesses to become trusted partners in helping people become and remain appropriately active.

But that trust has to be earned through appropriately qualified staff, clear referral pathways, professional boundaries, safeguarding, evidence-based programming, good data and measured outcomes. It also requires a willingness to say, "This person needs support beyond our competence."

That's not failure. That's professionalism.

Don't Underestimate the Power of Community

There is something else gyms can provide exceptionally well that has very little to do with equipment: human connection.

For somebody whose illness has affected their work, confidence, mobility or social life, becoming part of a community can be hugely valuable. Walking groups, coffee mornings, beginner clubs, small-group training, social events, workshops and member buddy schemes can all contribute.

Not everything has to involve sweating.

Sometimes the thing that keeps somebody attending isn't their programme. It's knowing that somebody will notice if they don't turn up.

From a human perspective that's incredibly valuable. From a business perspective, that sense of belonging can also have a significant impact on engagement and retention.

There Is a Serious Commercial Opportunity Here

None of this is simply about social responsibility. There is also a compelling business case.

If 46% of adults in England report at least one longstanding illness or health condition, we're talking about an enormous section of the population. Support, expertise, accountability, personalisation and community all have value, and they create opportunities for premium memberships, specialist programmes, small-group training, personal training, corporate health partnerships and potentially stronger long-term customer relationships.

They also create differentiation.

If your proposition is simply equipment, access and price, somebody can build a bigger gym or charge less. If your proposition becomes "We specialise in helping people who don't think conventional gyms are for them", you've created something considerably harder to replicate.

Stop Fighting Over the Same People

This connects with something I've written about previously. The fitness industry spends an enormous amount of money competing for people already predisposed to exercise. We advertise to existing gym users, take members from competitors, lose members back to competitors, discount, offer free months, install more equipment and repeat the process.

Meanwhile, millions of people remain outside the traditional fitness market. Some don't like gyms, some don't know where to start, some are frightened and some simply don't believe gyms are for people like them. Others have tried before and failed, while some live with conditions that genuinely require a different approach.

I don't see that as a problem.

I see it as one of the biggest opportunities our industry has.

My Own Experience Has Changed How I Think About Fitness

I've spent decades talking about the benefits of exercise and I believe in them as strongly as ever. But living with ME/CFS has given me a perspective I never expected to have.

I understand what it's like to want to train but know that training may have consequences. I understand the frustration of knowing what you used to be capable of and having to accept what you're capable of today. I've also learned that there are days when doing less isn't laziness; it's management.

Most importantly, I understand how inappropriate the traditional fitness mentality of "push through it" can be for some conditions.

That doesn't make me anti-exercise. Quite the opposite. It's made me far more interested in how we make physical activity work for the individual, rather than forcing the individual into our preconceived idea of what exercise should look like.

And I think there's an important lesson in that for our industry.

Perhaps We Need to Redefine What a Gym Is

For decades, we've largely built gyms around exercise. Perhaps the next evolution is to build them around health, capability and quality of life, with exercise as one of the tools we use to help people achieve those things.

The outcome might be greater strength, confidence, mobility, mental wellbeing, connection or independence. It might mean continuing to work, playing with your children, walking the dog, getting out of a chair or remaining independent as you age. For someone else, it might simply mean finding a sustainable relationship with movement that works with their condition rather than constantly fighting against it.

Almost half of adults in England report living with at least one longstanding illness or health condition. That should be a wake-up call for our industry, but not because all those people need gyms, exercise can fix every condition or every fitness professional is qualified to work with every illness.

It should make us question whether we're genuinely designing fitness businesses for the population that exists today, or whether we're still primarily designing them for people who are already healthy enough, confident enough and knowledgeable enough to walk through the door without much help.

The opportunity is much bigger than simply getting more people exercising. It's about listening better, personalising more, developing our teams, working more closely with healthcare, using technology intelligently, understanding our professional boundaries and creating appropriate ways for people to enter our facilities.

Most importantly, it's about meeting people where they are rather than where we think they should be.

If we can do that, the fitness industry can become far more than somewhere people go to work out. It can become an increasingly important part of how this country helps people live healthier, stronger and more independent lives.

And from both a human and a business perspective, that's an opportunity I think we'd be crazy to ignore.

The Sydney Sweeney Advert: Is It Really Setting Back Women’s Sport — Or Are We Having the Wrong Argument?

 

The Sydney Sweeney Advert: Is It Really Setting Back Women’s Sport

Or Are We Having the Wrong Argument?

There has been a huge reaction over the past few days to Sydney Sweeney's new campaign for sports prediction company Novig.

If you haven't seen it, the advert features Sweeney wearing little or no clothing, strategically covered by various pieces of sporting equipment while promoting Novig's sports-focused prediction platform. The response from female athletes has been fierce. Olympic champions and elite sportswomen including Ariarne Titmus, Amy Hunt and Sophie Capewell have criticised the campaign, while numerous athletes have posted videos of themselves competing under variations of the message: "This is what women in sport look like."

And I want to start by saying something important.

I understand their frustration.

Women's sport has fought incredibly hard to be taken seriously. Female athletes should be recognised first for their talent, dedication, sacrifice, strength and achievements rather than how attractive they happen to be.

I'm a huge supporter of women's sport. In fact, I barely watch men's football anymore. I watch the women's game with my daughter, and I think the growth in the standard, visibility and professionalism of women's sport has been fantastic to see.

So I understand why athletes are protective of that progress.

But I also think we need to separate several different arguments that have become mixed together.

Because when I actually look at this particular advert, I'm not convinced it says what some of its critics believe it says.

Sydney Sweeney isn't pretending to represent female athletes

This is probably the biggest distinction for me.

Sydney Sweeney isn't a professional athlete.

She's an actor and celebrity.

Novig didn't take an Olympic swimmer, footballer or sprinter and say, "Rather than celebrating your sporting ability, we're going to strip you off and sell your body."

They hired an actor whose public image and celebrity appeal are part of her commercial value.

And there is another important commercial consideration: the campaign appears deliberately aimed at attracting the attention of a predominantly male sports and betting audience.

That doesn't automatically make it tasteful.

It doesn't mean people shouldn't criticise it.

But it does change the context.

The sporting equipment is being used as a visual device to connect the advert to the product. I don't watch it and think, "This is how Novig believes female athletes should be represented."

I see an intentionally provocative celebrity advert designed to get people talking about a sports prediction business.

And on that measure, it has unquestionably succeeded.

The campaign reportedly passed 22 million views in its first two days. Analysis reported by Business Insider found Novig's social-media mentions increased roughly ninefold following the campaign.

Ironically, the backlash has become part of the marketing.

Sex sells. We can dislike that reality without pretending it doesn't exist.

This is probably where I'll upset some people.

Sexual attraction has been used in advertising for decades because human beings respond to attractive people.

Men and women.

This isn't exclusively something done to women.

David Beckham is one of the most obvious examples. His commercial value hasn't been based purely on what he did with a football. Fashion, underwear, fragrance, grooming and countless other endorsements have monetised his appearance alongside his sporting fame.

Male actors and athletes have appeared shirtless or virtually naked in advertising because brands know people find them attractive.

Female celebrities have done exactly the same.

And so have female athletes.

In fact, one detail being repeated in this debate needs correcting. Serena Williams wasn't naked on the cover of Sports Illustrated in the example people are sharing. She appeared nude on one of the six covers of ESPN The Magazine's inaugural Body Issue in 2009, and hers was reportedly the best-selling of those six covers. The issue deliberately celebrated elite athletic bodies through nude photography and included both male and female athletes.

Sweeney herself appears to have responded to the current criticism by sharing examples of male and female athletes who have previously participated in nude sporting photography.

That doesn't automatically invalidate the athletes' criticism.

But it does demonstrate that the relationship between sport, bodies, attractiveness and commercial imagery is considerably more complicated than simply saying:

"Showing an attractive woman with sporting equipment is an attack on women's sport."

There is an important distinction between choice and objectification

This is where I would slightly change one argument I've seen made around this controversy.

Female athletes should absolutely be able to compete in whatever legitimate kit is appropriate for their sport. They should also be free to post photographs of themselves in bikinis, training wear or anything else they choose.

The same applies to men.

And choosing to show your body doesn't mean you surrender your right to object to somebody else reducing your entire worth to that body.

Those two things can coexist.

But equally, we shouldn't pretend physical attractiveness suddenly ceases to exist because someone is an athlete.

If an athlete posts a photograph or video that deliberately celebrates their physique, people are going to notice their physique. That's human behaviour.

The important distinction is between noticing someone's attractiveness and deciding that their attractiveness is all they are worth.

That's where I think the debate needs considerably more nuance.

A woman can be an extraordinary athlete and attractive.

A man can be an extraordinary athlete and attractive.

Celebrating one doesn't automatically invalidate the other.

The problem comes when appearance consistently overshadows achievement or when female athletes discover that their commercial opportunities depend disproportionately on looking a particular way.

That's a legitimate issue worth discussing.

Female athletes themselves operate in a commercial marketplace

Professional sport isn't isolated from the rest of the entertainment industry.

Athletes have sponsors.

They build personal brands.

They create social-media audiences.

They sign ambassador agreements.

They appear in fashion campaigns.

They sell products.

And inevitably, commercial value isn't determined exclusively by sporting performance.

Personality matters.

Following matters.

Story matters.

Marketability matters.

And, uncomfortable though it might sometimes be to admit, appearance can matter too.

Again, that isn't unique to women.

David Beckham is perhaps the ultimate demonstration that sporting achievement can create the platform while image turns somebody into a global lifestyle brand.

Would Beckham have made the same enormous commercial income from fashion and grooming endorsements if brands hadn't considered him physically attractive and marketable?

Probably not.

That doesn't diminish what he achieved as a footballer.

It simply acknowledges how celebrity marketing works.

But there is another criticism of this advert that deserves attention

There's an aspect of this controversy I actually think is more interesting than much of the gender debate.

It's a gambling advertisement.

Using sexual attraction to capture attention and then directing that attention towards a gambling or sports-prediction product raises a completely separate ethical question.

One critic, former Olympic skier and Australian MP Zali Steggall, explicitly described the campaign as using sexualisation to attract young men to gambling.

That's a legitimate discussion.

We can debate whether gambling businesses should be permitted to use celebrity, sex appeal, football sponsorship, influencers and other powerful marketing devices to encourage participation.

But that's fundamentally a gambling advertising debate, not necessarily evidence that the advert is attempting to define what a female athlete should look like.

Those are different arguments.

And then we come to the marketing

This is where the whole episode becomes fascinating from a business perspective.

The campaign has been attacked for being provocative.

But being provocative appears to have been precisely the strategy.

Sweeney isn't simply a paid face either. Reporting says she has taken an equity stake in Novig, and the company's CEO says she pitched the partnership herself.

Then came the backlash.

Athletes made response videos.

News organisations covered those videos.

Other athletes joined in.

Commentators debated it.

Social media argued about it.

And people who had never heard of Novig suddenly knew its name.

The campaign's critics therefore became, unintentionally, part of its distribution network.

That's not me criticising the athletes for speaking out. If you genuinely believe something damages women's sport, you absolutely have the right to say so.

But from a marketing perspective, there's a brutal irony here.

The campaign against the campaign may have made the original campaign considerably more successful.

There is a caveat, though. Viral attention isn't automatically commercial success. Business Insider's analysis found that although Novig mentions increased dramatically, only around 4% of social posts discussing the controversy actually mentioned Novig.

That's fascinating too.

Everyone remembering Sydney Sweeney naked with a basketball isn't necessarily the same thing as everyone remembering which company she was advertising.

Views aren't revenue.

Controversy isn't conversion.

And brand awareness isn't necessarily positive brand equity.

We'll need time to know whether this was genuinely brilliant marketing or simply spectacular attention generation.

So are the female athletes wrong?

No.

I think their underlying argument deserves respect.

Women have spent generations fighting to be recognised for sporting achievement rather than appearance. Young girls should grow up seeing female athletes celebrated because they're powerful, skilful, determined and extraordinary at what they do.

When Amy Hunt runs 22.10 seconds for 200 metres, that should be the story.

When Ariarne Titmus wins four Olympic gold medals, her sporting legacy shouldn't depend on whether somebody considers her attractive.

I completely support that.

Where I disagree is with turning this particular advert into a representation of women in sport.

I don't think it is.

Sydney Sweeney isn't an athlete being presented as an athlete.

She's an actor and celebrity being used in a deliberately provocative advertising campaign aimed at generating attention for a sports prediction company.

The props happen to be sporting equipment because the product is about sport.

That distinction matters.

Perhaps we're asking the wrong question

Rather than asking:

"Does this advert show what women in sport look like?"

I'd ask:

"Was it ever supposed to?"

I don't think anyone watching Sydney Sweeney sitting naked on a basketball hoop genuinely believes they're watching a representation of elite women's basketball.

It's advertising.

Provocative advertising, certainly.

Perhaps unnecessary advertising.

Perhaps outdated advertising.

And people are perfectly entitled to dislike it.

But there's a danger that we attach a wider social meaning to every campaign simply because we don't like its creative execution.

Sometimes an advert designed to make men look at Sydney Sweeney is simply an advert designed to make men look at Sydney Sweeney.

Women's sport deserves better — but that doesn't mean every sexualised advert involving sport attacks women's sport

This is where I ultimately land.

I want my daughter to see female footballers celebrated for their ability.

I want female athletes to receive the recognition, investment, media coverage, sponsorship and respect their achievements deserve.

I don't want women's sport reduced to attractiveness.

And I certainly don't believe women should have to sexualise themselves to achieve commercial success.

But I also don't believe supporting women's sport requires us to pretend sex appeal doesn't exist, that celebrities haven't always monetised their image, or that male and female athletes haven't done exactly the same thing when they have chosen to.

There is room for both arguments.

Celebrate female athletes as athletes.

Judge them on their achievements.

Give women's sport the coverage and investment it deserves.

Challenge businesses when female athletes are being valued primarily for appearance rather than ability.

But equally, recognise that Sydney Sweeney is an actor who willingly participated in a provocative commercial campaign, not a female athlete being told that this is how she needs to present herself to succeed.

For me, that's why the current backlash doesn't quite land.

The athletes are fighting an important battle.

I'm simply not convinced this advert is actually the enemy.

And somewhere inside Novig's marketing department, I suspect they're watching millions of people argue about an advert from a company most of us had never heard of a week ago and thinking:

Please, keep talking.