Disrupters, Anchors, and Connectors: Why I Love the Change Happening at the Intersection of Fitness and Technology

Ask anyone following my Instagram Stories and they’ll say I’m fitness tech obsessed. Yes, closing my rings on my Apple Watch is a daily habit for me. Yes, I’m the Managing Director of an app that connects fitness businesses to their clients and members. Yes, I have a Peloton.

There’s just one issue I have with my Peloton: The leaderboard.

The other day I did a ride, led by Alex Toussaint, and as usual he was pumping me up with some solid tunes and his usual hype. I felt amazing, until I checked out my spot on the leaderboard — #37,959. LOL!

I’m sure the intent of the Peloton leadership is to give a community feel more than driving motivation, but nonetheless, it highlights the opportunities around digital fitness.

The beauty of digital fitness is that there are so many ways to drive motivation.

At Trainerize, we decided to drive motivation by bringing the personal trainer into the mix, and creating a human connection.

The recent investment ABC Fitness made in Trainerize, is encouraging our product teams to think about driving motivation through ‘digital communities’ as ABC represents 25 million members with gym memberships. (There’s more to follow this year on that front, and I promise you that you won’t be #45,604 in whatever community you’re a part of! 😉).

Apple is making huge strides in making fitness accessible to everyone by simplifying things and just making us close rings (which I obsess with daily btw, but would be harder to hit without my personal trainer monitoring my daily movements and pinging me with constant motivation). These are some of the many reasons why so many players are entering the digital fitness space, from Apple all the way to even lululemon. Community engagement, individual motivation, and an opportunity to create deeper connections with people are going to be drivers of more players entering our space… which is a great thing for everyone! Or at least, for the ones who embrace the movements, and understand ways to deliver value in this new ecosystem.

One year after COVID

I’ve been talking about the future of fitness technology for many years — long before COVID, or the following growth spurt for digital fitness.

By necessity, the rise of the digital consumer has been supercharged in the last year. Studios launched digital extensions of their brands. Gyms & trainers figured out how to translate their services online — many finding success through Trainerize, which is awesome to see. And what’s been most interesting to me, is the shift in consumer expectations.

Consumers’ eyes are being opened to a new, flexible, lifestyle-focused fitness routine.

Even if they miss their gym or their trainer, which I’m sure many do — they’re realizing there’s more to a fitness routine than just going to a gym three times a week. And taking it a step further, there’s more to a fitness routine than workouts alone! (Enter: nutrition and habits.) Last year I called it a “consumer awakening.”

As these new digital fitness enthusiasts start to demand more diverse services, gyms and trainers can (and should) be the ones to provide these services… and it starts, by embracing optionality — giving choice to their customers. Gyms are best positioned to capitalize on this new opportunity, for the main reason being, gyms already have the strongest relationship with people.

According to IHRSA, 184 million people have gym memberships, and so it makes sense to me that gyms and clubs should be the backbone of this ever-changing ecosystem in digital fitness.

What this means in the simplest of terms is… a gym membership has a whole new meaning now. It means something special when you’re inside the club, and there’s continuity to that membership when you walk out of the club. In this new normal, the club is a part of the person’s life, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, helping the person make sense of all the options available to them.

As flexibility and accountability reach new heights through digital fitness solutions — increased engagement comes with it. We’ve seen a big bump in engagement rates on Trainerize!

Not only do we have more users and more actions, but we’re seeing more actions per user.

We also saw consistency in habits & meal-tracking throughout the pandemic, even when workouts dipped — which shows that more integrated relationships between fitness businesses and consumers helps the relationship survive long-term.

Next phase in the evolution of fitness technology

There are three key players in this, all of whom are trying to reach the new digital fitness consumer.

We’ve got the anchors (the big box gyms and major sport apparel companies), who I feel are strongly positioned to capitalize on the digital fitness wave.

The disruptors, big brands like Peloton. They’re using innovation to offer new experiences, services, and products — creating new business niches and capitalizing on new consumer demands. Many of these folks are thriving — like lululemon acquiring Mirror, Apple launching Apple Fitness +, and Tonal announcing a retail partnership with Nordstrom.

Then, in a sense under the disrupters umbrella, we have the connectors, including us. I see Trainerize as a conduit between the anchors and the consumers. We are the link between fitness businesses and consumers — enabling regular people to engage with coaches that they love, and build stronger relationships with their fitness communities — both online and in person.

We’re supporting anchors in their digital journeys. We’re powering digital extensions of local and independent businesses and facilitating stronger client relationships through 360° coaching & 24/7 engagement, enabling a new total fitness experience.

Simply connecting fitness & technology isn’t enough — building motivation, accountability, engagement, and community are essential to keeping up with consumer demand.

Many consumers don’t have the budget, space, or interest in additional connected devices — they need to use the tools they already have, like their smartphones and wearable devices.

At Trainerize, our mission is to make fitness accessible — and that means meeting the consumer where they’re at, with the tools they have, and the budget they can afford — by bringing a human personal trainer into the mix. The human element is what can make the difference in connecting fitness and technology.

I’m confident that the shift to digital fitness solutions that we’ve seen in the last year is here to stay. And it’s up to fitness businesses to adapt and help consumers make sense of this shift. When gyms reopen, people will go back!

But interest in connected solutions and human interaction — that’s not going anywhere. And anchors, disrupters, and connectors alike will need to figure out how to provide that engagement to this new, digitally-savvy consumer.