Using AI to maximise the gym floor

In this blog from ukactive Strategic Partner TwinLabs.ai, CEO and Founder Tim Wade explains how health and fitness operators can use AI to support operations and extract maximum value from gym floors.

According to a survey of Les Mills members, just 10% of gym goers would want an AI coach. Perhaps surprisingly, younger generations were even more resistant than the over 55s. So, we’re not likely to see robot trainer on gym floors anytime soon.

However, that survey only covered the kind of AI you can see. It said nothing about the AI that is already changing how the sector gets run. Through AI operations, not coaching, you can obtain insights such as the value of every piece of kit you own, whether a room is genuinely full or just feels busy, or where your staff should be standing at 6.10pm.

At TwinLabs.ai, we use AI to build digital twins of gym floors so operators can see which equipment is worth the space and which isn’t. Using the CCTV they already have, customers are able to run experiments and receive advice on what to add and what to give the boot.

All this rests on one unglamorous thing – you can’t run AI on data you haven’t collected.

Think about how much of your business you measure properly. For example, you know your memberships – churn, secondary spend, cost per acquisition, class bookings. All of these measures will be on a dashboard or spreadsheet.

But can you tell me which three square metres of your gym floor earned the least money last month? Almost nobody can.

The gym floor is the biggest asset in leisure fitness and leisure facilities and the biggest cost. Despite this, all the attention it gets is a walk-past or a causal opinion, usually mid-morning when someone has a spare 10 minutes rather at the 6pm crush when everyone is already flat out.

One of our customers, Total Fitness, suspected they were over-provisioned on treadmills but had no substantial data or evidence to support their intuitions. When we looked into it, the data confirmed it and told them something more useful than just a percentage. They could see exactly which treadmills in which locations weren’t delivering value to their members. At their Wilmslow site, one whole treadmill bank came down and that floor space went into strength and bookable functional zones. This change is now rolling out across the estate.

At Newport Live, the same system pointed the other way. Their data showed members wanted more treadmills and stair climbers, rather than things like cross trainers and steppers.

Same tool, opposite answers depending on the specific behaviours and preferences of each operators’ customers.

Here’s something you can try on Monday without buying anything. Take the class that looks strongest on paper, stand at the door for a fortnight, and count.

After this, you’ll know something about your timetable you didn’t before. Then consider the same gap exists across every square metre you own, and you can’t stand at every door.

Mae BRP Systems yn aelod o Grŵp Partner Strategol ukactive – darganfyddwch fwy yma.

Ymwadiad: Unrhyw safbwyntiau o farn a fynegir yw rhai'r awdur yn unig ac nid ydynt o angenrheidrwydd yn cynrychioli rhai ukactive.