Providing new members with a workout program can be a great way to help ensure they progress towards their fitness goals.
However, there are some common mistakes that gyms make when it comes to workout programs that can impact member success and retention
We explore some of the pitfalls to avoid when programming and how to maximise your member progression and retention.
- Making workouts too long
- The first mistake is making workout programs too long. Habit creation research outlined in the book Atomic Habits by James Clear illustrates the fact that it’s much more likely for someone to create a habit if they start with small bite-sized chunks. This idea can be applied to the workout programs you provide members. Ideally, workout programs for new members should be no longer than 40 minutes and ideally between 20-30 minutes.
This has an important psychological effect on new members. The hardest step when doing exercise at the gym is getting to the gym. Mentally, it is a lot easier to act knowing a workout is only going to take 30 minutes than 1 hour and 30 minutes.
We recommend having strict guidelines for your gym staff to ensure gym programs are capped at 40 minutes for new members.
Once members have developed a strong habit with their gym attendance you can slowly start to increase the length of workouts however keeping it short is the key to success in those early habit formation stages.
- Making workouts too complicated
- The next mistake is making workout programs too complex. Many trainers want to show their expertise by prescribing complex and advanced exercises to new members. Often it is easy to forget what it is like to be a beginner particularly when you have been in the industry for some time.
At the end of the day, the role of each trainer is to serve the members. This means understanding the needs of new members and understanding what it is like to be learning the ropes at a gym. It can be extremely overwhelming.
Making things too complex can overwhelm the new member and stall their progress leading to an increased chance of drop out.
It can be advisable to continually re-enforce the message to your gym team that for new members our goal is to keep things quite simple and easy to follow.
There is a time for more advanced and complicated training programs but not with new members who lack experience.
- Making workouts one dimensional
- Over the years we have seen a lot of gym programs written. Most programs are what we call one dimensional. In other words, they are a list of exercises, with specific sets, reps and recommended weights assigned.
These programs are great however they have one fundamental flaw in terms of habit formation and behavior change.
One of the biggest weapons in terms of behaviors change is what is known as environmental cues.
Environmental cues can be used to help trigger a certain behavior – One of the best environmental cues available to us is day and time.
For example, if you tell a member to follow X program 3 times per week this is significantly less powerful as getting a member to assign specific days and times for when they will come to the gym.
If a member plans out that they will come to the gym on Monday and Wednesday at 6 pm and Saturday morning at 9 am this scheduling greatly increases the chances that the member complies and sticks to this schedule.
Gyms can leverage this concept by helping members create a weekly plan that will complement their specific workout program. This weekly plan or schedule is a missing link in terms of compliance and behavioral change and should be a consideration for every gym that wants to maximise member retention.
By avoiding these 3 programming pitfalls your gym can help maximise the progression and retention of your new members.