» Executive Focus Make a Splash!
Swimming pools are an important amenity in today’s fitness clubs
BY BARB GORMLEY W
hile the popularity of swimming pools may have wavered up and down over the past de- cades, today they are a
hot fitness club amenity. “Every single club we’re building
or renovating absolutely has a pool,” says Adam Brinn, manager of new con- struction at PPL Aquatic, Fitness And Spa Group Inc., a 40+-year-old com- pany which is located in Mississauga, Ontario. Here are some of the big trends in
pools that Brinn is seeing in today’s fit- ness club and condo market.
Ramped-up Programming Participation in aquatic fitness has continued to boom the past years as
40 Fitness Business Canada September/October 2017
exercisers increasingly recognize that the natural resistance of water makes for an amazing workout. Water-based group exercise classes continue to at- tract a demographic much younger than in years past. People are using their club pool for more than a casual swim or a few laps to cooldown after a workout. “Every time I look in a club or con-
do pool there’s someone using it in- stead of an exercise machine,” says Brinn. “A half hour of water exercise can be very challenging. People aren’t just using the pool to swim 20 laps anymore.”
Salt versus chlorine “We’re seeing a lot of facilities mov- ing away from liquid chlorine to salt water pools,” says Brinn. “About half of the facilities we work with are
converting to salt, and half of the condo pools we build today are salt. And every residential pool that we’ve built over the last two years has been salt.” What’s the attraction? People enjoy
the mineralized sensation they feel when they’re immersed in it and the soft-skin feeling you feel afterward versus the dry-skin feel you get in an over-chlorinated pool, says Brinn. Other benefits include the fact that
salt water pools don’t have the same aroma as chlorinated pools. (Brinn clarifies that saltwater pools actually use chlorine, just less of it.) And adver- tising a salt water pool can also be an effective marketing tool. On the down side, corrosion, pitting
and staining of your concrete deck and any metal associated with the pool can be an issue with salt water pools. They can also be expensive to maintain. In fact, Brinn notes that PPL is beginning to spec fewer salt water pools because of these two issues.
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