Workout Anytime Goes All-In on Premium Wellness
The gym franchise sees modalities like sauna and red light therapy as key to bringing new members through its doors and earning more revenue from existing ones
The look and feel of the 24-hour gym is quickly changing as brands embrace high-end amenities once reserved for luxury facilities.
One of the 24-hour brands leading that charge, Workout Anytime, is investing big in wellness and recovery, adding amenities including sauna (traditional and infrared), red light therapy, massage chairs and percussion guns. Cold plunge tubs could be coming soon, too, if a trial run at one of the brand’s Arizona locations goes well.
The Atlanta-based Workout Anytime currently counts around 200 gyms, all of which are open 24/7, and is continuing to grow. So far in 2024, the gym brand has signed 12 new franchise agreements and completed six transfers.
For Workout Anytime, embracing wellness makes business sense for a couple of reasons: it helps the brand attract new customers who wouldn’t ordinarily step foot in a gym, and it drives more revenue per existing member through premium membership sales.
The Key To Motivating the 80%?
Greg Maurer, vice president of education at Workout Anytime, points out that around 80% of Americans still don’t own a gym membership. The fitness industry has been trying to appeal to this famous “80%” segment for years now, with little success.
Wellness modalities might hold the key to getting this stubborn cohort into the gym, even if it’s not to work out.
“People on the couch, which is most people, still feel like they don’t belong in a gym,” Maurer tells Athletech News. “These amenities can provide real, tangible mental and physical benefits for everyone, even if you’re not working out yet.”
Getting just a small slice of the 80% into gyms would mark a serious financial win for brands like Workout Anytime.
“Just expanding another five or 10% of that group is unbelievable,” Maurer says. “It doesn’t have to move a large percentage of people before it has a very significant impact on our bottom line.”
Wellness-Based Memberships Drive Incremental Revenue
But gyms don’t necessarily have to add new members to see economic gains from offering wellness amenities.
At its new locations, Workout Anytime is making the majority of its wellness and recovery amenities available under a premium membership plan, which carries a slightly higher monthly price tag than a traditional membership.
Higher-priced memberships mean more revenue per member, which is especially beneficial for gym owners in today’s tough economic climate, as soaring labor and real estate costs drag down profits.
“If you can get more dollars per head, the problem goes away,” Maurer notes. “What we’ve learned with these modalities is that absolutely is the case. In the clubs that really commit to this, particularly our new clubs that have a full-on premium wellness suite, they’re absolutely commanding a higher dollar amount and getting it, and that makes a world of difference in their bottom lines.”
Implementing Premium Wellness in a 24/7 Model
Adding wellness amenities across an established network of 200-plus 24/7 gym locations is a challenge, so Workout Anytime is taking a measured approach.
All newly built Workout Anytime clubs will feature a premium wellness suite, with franchise owners typically opting to include a wide array of amenities in their gyms, including infrared or traditional sauna, massage chairs and red light therapy.
At its legacy clubs, Workout Anytime is working with franchise owners to retrofit existing spaces to add some wellness amenities. While legacy clubs might not be able to offer their members access to each and every wellness option on the market today due to space constraints, it’s important that they get in the game, Maurer believes.
“When you have a retail brick-and-mortar model that’s as old as we are, 25 years old, guess what’s going to happen? It’s not going to look the same,” he says. “So we knew we had to make that adjustment, and we’ve made them to allow legacy clubs, which are typically a bit smaller than our current clubs being built, to add these features.”
(credit: Workout Anytime)
Many of the wellness modalities on offer at Workout Anytime require little to no staff oversight, so they can stay open 24 hours a day, in line with the gym’s normal operating hours.
Some modalities, like saunas and cold plunge, can’t be administered 24/7 since they require special oversight to ensure member safety; those amenities have restricted operating hours.
Carving a Niche in the Crowded Gym Market
The rise of wellness isn’t to say fitness isn’t important; on the contrary, it’s still the bread and butter of gyms across the world. Workout Anytime is no different.
On the fitness side, the brand has embraced the rise of strength training by adding more free weights and cutting back on cardio equipment. In particular, Workout Anytime announced that it will be adding an Ab & Glute Zone to all new locations as demand for training those body parts surges, especially among women.
“They’re absolute musts, particularly the glute zone,” Maurer says.
Down the line, Workout Anytime gyms could even feature equipment as innovative as virtual reality (VR) treadmills, Maurer shares.
While the gym landscape is highly competitive, Maurer believes Workout Anytime sits in a strategic position. Its gyms typically occupy a space of around 8,000 square feet (actual size can vary from location to location), making its average footprint bigger than brands like 24/7 gym rival Anytime Fitness but smaller and more intimate than big-box chains like Planet Fitness and Crunch Fitness.
The Atlanta-based brand has spread itself across the country with locations from Pennsylvania to Arizona, but the majority of its gyms are concentrated in the Southeast. True to its roots, Workout Anytime prides itself on a southern-hospitality approach to customer service, which it argues further differentiates its gyms from big-box chains.
“It’s the difference between walking into a Lowe’s or Home Depot and your local hardware store where they know your name and help you,” Maurer says.