Fitness is B.S.

15/06/2026

Full explanation in the comments

14/06/2026

https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/news/2026/3/determined-90-year-old-grandma-breaks-record-for-oldest-woman-to-hold-a-dead-hang

The indomitable Ann Crile Esselstyn (USA) took this record in front of her proud family, after a lifetime of encouraging her children and grandchildren to be their healthiest selves.

14/06/2026

Auto-renewal memberships are the key industry revenue model, but new research on defaults has highlighted two key areas that impact recurring membership retention.
I've broken down the research findings and how they provide simple solutions for member retention.
Link to the blog in the comments section.

16/05/2026

Three residents are suing the gym below them. They want to push opening hours from 5am to 9am. Now a judge has to legally define how early is too early to grunt.

16/05/2026

90% of gym-goers can't predict their own habit forming, even as it's forming in front of them. Researchers proved this in a Berkeley field experiment, and your members are still proving it on your gym floor today.

Link in the comments to the research and how it can help your members

09/05/2026

Using power words like FREE, NOW, and FLASH in your emails may be affecting your open rates.
A new linguistics study on 31,812 marketing emails found those words reduce opens by 3.5%. ALL CAPS reduces them another 3.3%
I have written a blog on how you can apply the study to your newsletter, link in the comments.

02/05/2026

If your gym's marketing to over-55s runs on fear of decline or defiance of ageing (the "turn back the clock" kind of copy), think again. A 2026 paper that followed more than 11,000 older adults for twelve years gives you a reason to rethink it.

Link to my blog post on this in the comments

27/04/2026

26/04/2026

Spent some time this week reading research on something called partitioned pricing, which sounds dry but actually changed my mind on joining fees.
The basic finding is that when researchers showed people the same total cost laid out two different ways, one with a joining fee and a monthly rate listed separately, the other bundled into a single all-inclusive monthly price, the version with two separate numbers consistently won on purchase intent. Same money out of the consumer's pocket either way, just a different result depending on how it was presented.
Which is awkward, because the industry's spent years waiving joining fees on the assumption that fewer numbers means less friction at the point of sale.
Anyone here actually tested it both ways?
https://fitnessisbs.com/partitioned-pricing-gym-membership/

21/04/2026

Link to the answer in comments