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by Kristen Walsh

A new IHRSA report aims to help health club owners and operators to better understand personal and small group training clients. The IHRSA Fitness Training Report was published in February and is generously sponsored by Power Systems.

Personal and small-group training form a significant share of non-dues revenue for health clubs. According to IHRSA’s Profiles of Success, personal training is the number one profit center among leading health clubs, while small-group training is a close second among top fitness-only centers.

“With the growing popularity of personal and small group training, with this report IHRSA aims to provide a deeper understanding of the consumer demographics and usage trends of fitness training services in order help club operators attract and engage more customers,” says Jay Ablondi, IHRSA’s executive vice president of Global Products.

“Fitness training clients tend to be more committed to their workouts, have better retention rates and get better results, so the more successful that club operators can be at converting the occasion exercisers to PT and small group training clients, the healthier their members, and bottom lines—will be,” he adds.

Data analyzed and reported in The IHRSA Fitness Training Report was compiled in 2016 by Sports Marketing Surveys, Inc., a Jupiter, Florida based sports research business servicing the sports facility, equipment and sporting goods industry. The report concentrates on health club consumers (i.e. those who used a health club within the last 12 months).

Key Findings

1. In 2016, 8.4 million health club consumers engaged in personal training, representing 12.6% of total consumers. Members used a personal trainer for an average of 29 sessions in 2016, while non-members reported using a personal trainer for 21 sessions during the same year.

2. In 2016, 17.7 million health club consumers utilized small group training (SGT), representing 26.6% of total consumers.  Members engaged in SGT for an average of 26 sessions in 2016, while non-members utilized SGT an average of 27 times.

3. Nearly 9 out of 10 personal training users were health club members (87%).  Roughly 13% were non-member consumers who utilized a health club.

4. A slightly greater portion of non-member consumers engaged in SGT over personal training.  15% of total SGT users were non-members, while the remaining 85% were card-carrying members.

5. Studio health club consumers were more likely to engage in personal and small group training relative to users of other clubs and gyms.  The average rate of personal training utilization at studios was 21% and 31.7% for SGT.

6. Fitness-only clubs had higher penetration rates for small group training than multipurpose facilities, while multipurpose clubs had higher penetration rates for personal training.  In all, 11.6% of fitness-only club consumers indicated using a personal trainer and 26.4% reported using small group training. At multipurpose clubs, 14.9% of consumers utilized personal training, while 19.1% engaged in small group training.

7. SGT users were more likely to be female, while personal training clients were more likely to be male in 2016.  The male: female breakout for SGT was 46:54; it was the reverse for personal training at 54:46.

8. Generation Z consumers were the most likely age cohort to utilize both small group training.  Nearly half of Gen Z health club consumers engaged in small group training in 2016 (45.8%).

9. Generation Z and Millennial consumers were the most likely age group to use a personal trainer.  The penetration rates for Generation Z and Millennial club consumers were 17.5% and 17.2%, respectively.

10. Training utilization among minority groups was high relative to overall penetration rates. 14.4% of African-American club consumers reported using a personal trainer in 2016, while 28.3% indicated engaging in SGT. Among Hispanic club consumers, 17.4% used a personal trainer in 2016, while 44.7% participated in SGT.

Access the Report

Visit ihrsa.org/publications to access the entire report as well as Profiles of Success, The IHRSA Health Club Consumer Report, and other relevant IHRSA resources. Questions? Please contact store@ihrsa.org.