INTERVIEW
Steady growth: There are plans to open five new clubs a year, plus a first US club in Miami
the health benefits of exercise. “If you ask people whether exercise is good for them, of course they say yes, but they don’t have any real knowledge to back this up. We ran a marketing campaign a couple of years ago that focused on the health benefits of fitness, but ultimately we can’t educate the whole population – we’re a commercial organisation and that’s not our remit. “One big problem is that, in Russia, medical community involvement is missing entirely. Doctors never advise their patients to go to the gym. In fact, they tell people with conditions such as high blood pressure to take it easy. We wanted to do something to address that. “We’ve always been into fitness
ourselves, and as we’ve got older – worrying about losing our own physical capabilities – we’ve started to appreciate the need for medical fitness even more. So Alexey joined the Medical Fitness Association in the US to really study this area, and we’ve worked with specialist doctors to create a ‘club in club’ medical fitness concept – medical professionals
People who
have a medical problem are willing to pay more than those coming just for fitness
who’ve worked with elite sports teams in athletes’ rehab, for example, or who have expertise of working with older people, people with illnesses and so on. “We launched our first site at one of our City Fitness clubs in the middle of Moscow in August – it didn’t need to be in an Orange Fitness site, as it’s less about diverse facilities and more about personal attention. “There are a couple of extra rooms with medical fitness equipment for rehab, and we have three doctors on-site for members to refer to at all times. Members have personalised programmes and they pay extra to access these services. But they also pay for personal training sessions which take place in the main gym – crucially with a doctor coming along for a few minutes during the session to check everything’s going OK. “Where personal training would
normally cost US$70 an hour, with that small level of doctor involvement people pay US$150. And they’re happy to pay it because they feel supervised. In the first month of the medical fitness offering being launched, the turnover at the club doubled. We’ve found that people who already have a medical problem are willing to pay more than those who are simply coming for fitness or even for preventative healthcare. “But the benefits go beyond member satisfaction and club profitability. It’s also good for our trainers, who now really see the value in what they offer. So often, trainers don’t perceive themselves as real professionals and they feel guilty about charging people for their services. But when they’re helping people get measurable results, that all changes.
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“Based on the first month and a half, the model is proving very successful, and in the long term I’d like to roll it out to all clubs in our estate. But we can’t replicate it immediately. One key problem is a lack of doctors who buy into this approach – we need to work with people who have the same beliefs as us. But we also want more evidence. We want to be able to prove our ongoing success over the course of a full year, so we can go to the government with solid evidence of health improvements among our members. “We tried to talk to the local authorities about this before, but nobody wanted to listen. We hope the government will start to appreciate the need to keep the population healthy, not least in terms of cutting the national expense of healthcare. There’s a good new minister of health, and we’re hopeful attitudes will start to change – perhaps introducing tax breaks for fitness businesses, or introducing state education programmes for fitness professionals. At the moment, everyone working in fitness is privately educated.”
International expansion As if launching its new medical fitness concept weren’t enough of a challenge, the company is also looking to open a City Fitness club in Miami, US. “There are 300,000 Russian expats in Miami and we plan to test the ground by opening one club out there, probably in about 12 months’ time. “We’d need to change the model a
bit, although I don’t know exactly how yet. Very probably it will involve a lot of personal attention, with medical fitness and nutritional advice, rather than being a particularly big or upmarket club.
November/December 2012 © cybertrek 2012
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