Gym owners and personal trainers could always bank on a booming business in January. Each year, New Year’s resolutions brought droves of hyper-motivated people into their fitness studios and made them money.
Many people, however, remain ambivalent about the value of in-person fitness or paid weight-loss programs due to nearly three years of largely virtual living, those in the industry said.“Heading into ‘23, it is going to be really, really tricky for clubs,” said Tim Rubin, owner of the Sporting Club Main Line in Bryn Mawr.
January remains “Super Bowl season” for gyms, said Christine Smith, chief marketing officer for the Camp Hill, Pa.-based Planet Fitness franchisee group, National Fitness Partners, which operates at more than 40 locations in the Philadelphia region. A recent Planet Fitness-commissioned survey that found 89% of people in the U.S. were concerned about low energy, so a new marketing campaign that began New Year’s Eve focuses on exercise as a way to increase energy levels, Smith said.
And while the company declined to publicly share its exact number of subscribers, “January is still our biggest time,” he said. Even through the pandemic, Nutrisystem has seen three to four times growth in January compared to December, Mikulak said, and the first days of 2023 have shown promising signs that the trend will continue this year.
At Fit Academy in Brewerytown, “it’s Jan. 3 and my entire calendar for this week is slammed” with sales consultations, owner Osayi Osunde said earlier this week.