January Gym-bashing backlash!

Liz Terry of Leisure Media has called for the annual gym-bashing to stop. With the rise of social media, constant content and fake news, there seem to be more stories of how evil the fitness industry is, with everyone from the Guardian to the Sunday Times saying how people should do without the gym.

The January rush story is never going to go away, but it’s worth talking about what we can do to combat this bad press. Here’s what we do when talking to friends and family, or taking the battle online…

• Debunking the myth that everybody joins in January, and is ‘gone’ by March

How do you get people to use the system?

Any system is only as good as the people using it. Data is critical (rubbish in = rubbish out), but the key to success for any system is the operators or users of the system. Here’s how you get people to use a system.

Many systems are purchased as a management decision without need for the users buy-in. A key part of the successful implementation is therefore selling it to the staff who will be operating the system. This is a big part of what I’ve done for a lot of my working life, from banking systems to exercise management systems.