I love articles like this that explain business models that on the surface don’t seem to make sense. I’d like to see a similar analysis of how porn survives as a profitable business when there is an absolutely unlimited supply on the web for free. During the early days of the web I understand but how they make money now is inscrutable.
How Gyms Make Money (2015)
81–90 of 229 posts
Re: How Gyms Make Money (2015)
#82A friend asked me what gym I’m going to now days, I was delighted to inform him it’s a globally available 24/7 gym and I never have to wait for equipment. It’s 2 square meters in “the park”. 120 bodyweight squats, lunges, and calf raises, 150 push ups and 200 sit ups, 3km run, and 10 minutes stretching. Challenging, requires zero thought or planning (other than wearing a warm top on cold days) and costs $0/month.
Have you been doing this for a long time consistently? Have you noticed your shoulders rolling forward? You do a lot of chest work but 0 back work.
I'm not big into bodyweight stuff, but I did manage to cause myself problems in my early lifting days when I used to half-ass rows and take bench super seriously.
Re: How Gyms Make Money (2015)
#83I love articles like this that explain business models that on the surface don’t seem to make sense. I’d like to see a similar analysis of how porn survives as a profitable business when there is an absolutely unlimited supply on the web for free. During the early days of the web I understand but how they make money now is inscrutable.
Because the well runs dry quickly if you have specific tastes.
Re: How Gyms Make Money (2015)
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’m happy for you, but this is kind of phrased a little overly smugly to me. As someone who lifts weights, it sounds like “I don’t go to the grocery, I just eat potatoes and eggs from my backyard farm”. It’s certainly something you can do and get good results, but it’s also a limitation. If you want to build muscle or strength past a certain point it will be very inefficient not to use free weights. Maybe you don’t w…
It's more relief than smugness. Gyms always seemed to let me down: onerous contracts, complex or buggy booking platforms/procedures, unhygienic, stuffy, rigid class start times and open hours. Gaining self-sufficiency made me incredibly happy/relieved. The final straw was when I wanted to pause the membership the gym required "supporting documentation" (i.e. flight or hotel itinerary). I cringed so hard. When I cance…
I also discovered outdoor calisthenics over the pandemic. Massive upgrade in every way :)
Re: How Gyms Make Money (2015)
#85A friend asked me what gym I’m going to now days, I was delighted to inform him it’s a globally available 24/7 gym and I never have to wait for equipment. It’s 2 square meters in “the park”. 120 bodyweight squats, lunges, and calf raises, 150 push ups and 200 sit ups, 3km run, and 10 minutes stretching. Challenging, requires zero thought or planning (other than wearing a warm top on cold days) and costs $0/month.
Have you been doing this for a long time consistently? Have you noticed your shoulders rolling forward? You do a lot of chest work but 0 back work. I'm not big into bodyweight stuff, but I did manage to cause myself problems in my early lifting days when I used to half-ass rows and take bench super seriously.
About 5 times per week for 6 months.
The exact workout is from 19m28s - 37:22 in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0WOTplwNlw&t=19m28s (I do the whole thing twice, then 3km run then stretch)
Imbalance is something that worries me. I figure it's better to do a workout that's imbalanced than to come up with a theoretically perfect workout that requires a gym that I hate going to or, worse, doing no structured exercise (which is what I did for periods in the past). If you have suggestions to better balance the workout, I'd love to hear them and will integrate changes immediately.
Re: How Gyms Make Money (2015)
#86Any gym owners can chime in? My local gym seemed pretty normal this January so far (but I am in Australia where many people book their holidays during forced shutdown periods). Also the gym seems to have the same pricing whenever except sometimes there is “no joining fee” which is a weird thing to me but hey? My gym is independent. A famous world brand of gym I used to belong to seemed to make their money by making i…
A personal trainer I had at a very low rate (about $35/month in 2015) Manhattan gym confided in me that the place had something like 10X more active memberships than they could ever fit into the gym, even if everyone came at a uniform time distribution once every other day. They knew empirically that they could basically get away with overselling a service (adequate time and space to use the facility) than they could…
That is a crazy low rate. Which gym is it?
Re: How Gyms Make Money (2015)
#87I love articles like this that explain business models that on the surface don’t seem to make sense. I’d like to see a similar analysis of how porn survives as a profitable business when there is an absolutely unlimited supply on the web for free. During the early days of the web I understand but how they make money now is inscrutable.
Because the well runs dry quickly if you have specific tastes.
AI can probably fix that in the near future.
Re: How Gyms Make Money (2015)
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's more relief than smugness. Gyms always seemed to let me down: onerous contracts, complex or buggy booking platforms/procedures, unhygienic, stuffy, rigid class start times and open hours. Gaining self-sufficiency made me incredibly happy/relieved. The final straw was when I wanted to pause the membership the gym required "supporting documentation" (i.e. flight or hotel itinerary). I cringed so hard. When I cance…
I also discovered outdoor calisthenics over the pandemic. Massive upgrade in every way :)
[deleted]
Re: How Gyms Make Money (2015)
#89I've been a gym rat for almost 20 years now, and I'm probably the worst customer for gyms. I only workout at 24*7 gyms and being an early bird I get there at 430 and I have pretty much the whole gym for myself. I am there 6 days a week and I always shower at the gym. Further, I use the corporate discounts available to join the memberships. With all that, it comes down to approx. $50 a month for membership and I used…
>I'm probably the worst customer for gyms [...] I get there at 430 no that's the best customer for gyms. The ACTUAL way gyms make money is by heavily over subscribing a fixed amount of resources (machines/benches/space). You finding some random time to go to the gym instead of just canceling has barely any marginal cost over some one just not going and you'll talk positively about having a membership.
Hmmm, not sure how much a customer taking a hot shower costs a gym.
Re: How Gyms Make Money (2015)
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
Have you been doing this for a long time consistently? Have you noticed your shoulders rolling forward? You do a lot of chest work but 0 back work. I'm not big into bodyweight stuff, but I did manage to cause myself problems in my early lifting days when I used to half-ass rows and take bench super seriously.
About 5 times per week for 6 months. The exact workout is from 19m28s - 37:22 in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0WOTplwNlw&t=19m28s (I do the whole thing twice, then 3km run then stretch) Imbalance is something that worries me. I figure it's better to do a workout that's imbalanced than to come up with a theoretically perfect workout that requires a gym that I hate going to or, worse, doing no structure…
Pulling movements in general are pretty hard to do with just calisthenics. Anywhere in that big park, is there a nice sturdy pole or post? If so, you can get an elastic band set, usually very inexpensive and portable, and use that to do rows (and face pulls, if you want).
I would also try to incorporate pull-ups (some parks have pull up bars, or you can install one at home) to work your lats. This might be tricky if you’re not at the point where you can do a body weight pull-up yet. If that’s the case, you can probably figure out how to do a lat pull down with elastic bands and the right kind of rigid surface.
You can use your feet to stabilize the bands to do curls (biceps, some forearms) and shrugs (traps) to round out most “pulling” movements. Also you can isolate your triceps and side delts with bands. And do “harder” ab exercises than just sit-ups. They’re very versatile, like a much less expensive cable system.