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Nutrition advice from social media “experts” is best viewed with a huge grain of Himalayan pink salt, says new research presented at this year’s European Congress on Obesity. British researchers at the University of Glasgow recently combed through popular U.K. nutrition and weight loss blogs to determine how much of the advice being dished out was trustworthy. The social media influencers were graded on transparency, nutritional soundness and use of research-backed references.
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Being glued to your smartphone at night may not be so smart if you’re trying to stick to a healthy diet. In research presented at the 2019 conference of the Society for the Study of Ingestive Behavior, in the Netherlands, rats exposed at night to just 1 hour of blue light—the same type of light emitted by many digital devices like smartphones—consumed more sugar afterward than when they were not exposed to blue light at night.
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As we become better informed about the potential pitfalls of too much screen time, findings in the Journal of Behavioral Medicine suggest that sitting in front of a computer to play a diet-focused game may drive people to trade in their candy for cauliflower!
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More and more people choose exercising at gyms and studios to stay healthy. The trend is occurring across the age spectrum, from baby boomers to millennials. Americans choose the convenience, expertise, and comradery found at gyms and studios to stay at their fitness best.
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Your gym should be a welcoming space.
First-timers should feel comfortable—and wanted—walking in and working out or taking classes.
Not only is being welcoming an important part of the human contract, but it’s doubly important for your business. First-time customers, of course, can become repeat customers and even members. Making sure their first experience at your gym or studio is positive is important for your bottom line.
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As the holidays approach, so does the three-day Super Bowl of Shopping.
Black Friday (Nov. 29), Small Business Saturday (Nov. 30), and Cyber Monday (Dec. 2) are all circled on any good bargain-hunter’s calendar.
Enticing them can mean a chance to bolster your retail sales. AND, if you present the right deal, you can earn a customer who will return again and again.
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Outstanding customer service has always been the number-one way to attract and retain customers, clients and members. In recent years, the notion of great customer service has changed as a result of high expectations from informed consumers. This switch has occurred in large part because people can “connect” with a company easily and quickly through a multitude of channels, both offline and online.
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Is your fitness business not performing as well as you’d like? Maybe your fitness facility is experiencing too much turnover, so you’re constantly training new staff instead of taking time to grow your business. Or perhaps your clients are leaving, and you’re losing money because of it. Challenges like these are tough for a business owner. The good news is that you can turn things around. The first step is to determine exactly what your problem is. The second step is to create a plan for change.
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The fitness industry has never been so exciting, and there is so much renewed interest in wellness and our collective desire to seek optimal health. The concept of a “traditional gym” has slogged it out for about 50 years, starting in community halls and evolving into big-box gyms, budget clubs and boutique studios. Adjacent industries—such as entertainment, health, athleisure, franchising, food and hospitality, social media and gaming—are investing money in our arena.
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IDEA has the pleasure of introducing to its valued members the world’s number-one personal training and coaching software, My PT Hub.
Since 2015, My PT Hub has grown to become the No. 1 software tool enabling Personal Trainers to manage their entire fitness business. The software has a vast and extensive set of features that have been carefully designed and crafted by personal trainers, for personal trainers.
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Nowadays, a top item on an entrepreneur’s to-do list is building a website. It’s no secret that consumers do their research online before making a purchase decision. They search for information about fitness services and then weigh their options, comparing what you offer to what your competitors provide.
So, yes, your business needs a website.
Whether you’re getting your first frost warnings or temps have dropped from 100 degrees to a balmy 95 where you live, summer is just about over.
That means it’s time to plan for the holidays at your fitness business and the ensuing new year’s rush.
Has your program director been hinting that your participation numbers are down? It can be frustrating and challenging to keep your regular participants engaged while trying to recruit new fans. If you’re like a lot of instructors, you’ve probably gone from not having anyone to teach to maybe even having to turn people away due to lack of space! There are many things you can do to keep the participants you have, capture new ones and keep people exercising with you, year after year.
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Minimalism is trending in many areas of life, including athletic shoes, with many fans touting numerous benefits. But does the evidence support the hype? Yes, according to research findings published in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise (2018; doi:10.1249/MSS.0000000000001751). Walking in minimalist shoes is as effective as foot-strengthening exercises and may result in better compliance than doing specific exercises.
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Have you been frustrated by bad health and fitness advice doled out by social media influencers? You’re not alone, and if you sense that much of the popular online health information is wrong, you’re right! A recent study of key U.K. social media influencers’ weight management blogs—presented at the European Congress on Obesity in Glasgow, Scotland, in April 2019—showed that most influencers were not reliable weight management resources.
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Looking for ways to activate and strengthen the core that go beyond the plank? IDEA’s latest free course (that’s right, free!) will help you fill your toolbox with a variety of multiplanar exercises that specifically—and effectively—target the core, keeping your clients interested and engaged.
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It’s not a good idea to be a distracted driver when pushing your shopping cart. A study with modern-day relevance found that people who used their phones for “shopping-unrelated” tasks—like scrolling through a social media feed or volleying text messages with a friend—purchased more unplanned items than people who didn’t use their phones while grocery shopping. And were those items a head of broccoli or a pint of blueberries? No, the purchases were mostly nutritionally poor, packaged foods.
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It’s the end of summer, and either your clients are returning from hiatus—wanting to reconnect with you and their fitness programs—or you’re looking for ways to keep the wellness momentum going as fall approaches and the start of school and cooler weather threatens to throw schedules off-kilter. You’re in the thick of it now, and this transition is a prime opportunity to offer unique strategies to keep people fired up.
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Search engine optimization—SEO—isn’t black magic. It’s all about creating readable, searchable content. That way people can easily complete their tasks and learn what they need to learn from your website.
If you do that well enough, your business’s website should rank more highly on Google and other search engines.
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Do you worry about the financial impact of getting sick or injured? Does taking a vacation mean a financial loss for you? As a studio owner or fitness entrepreneur, you have only so many hours in the day to market and run your business and focus on your own professional education and development.
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