Imagine your personal trainers being no longer confined by the four walls of your club.
At Crunch, it became a reality when the company partnered with nutrition analysis program dotFIT.
“It’s a pretty thorough program that’s used by all of our trainers to be able to develop personal training programs,” said Nasario Mejia, the vice president of fitness at Crunch. “In my personal opinion, what’s really led to a lot of success for training programs like Crunch is that [with dotFIT] we’re able to give people that real-life feedback on what’s going on with their daily fitness program.”
The program allows for members and trainers to interact outside of the gym. Clients record their calories and what type of food they’re consuming, and the trainer receives the information. Plus, by using dotFIT’s Exerspy, a wearable device to track caloric expenditure, the personal trainer can adjust each individual’s training depending on the feedback they receive.
“It really gives the trainer the ability to fine-tune the program,” said Mejia. “It really gives our trainers a really in-depth understanding of what’s going on with the person’s eating habits, workout habits, cardio habits and overall, the fitness program gives them a lot of feedback to allow them to coach the member better at a higher level.”
By being mobile and giving members a greater amount of feedback, Mejia said Crunch is simply following a fitness trend. More and more people want to know about fitness and what exercise is doing to their body. In fact, the benefits of it are visible. “This type of technology has really created a very competitive nature to people achieving their goals actually, and it’s increased the commitment level of the average consumer,” he said.
Plus, the technology has allowed Crunch to differentiate from its competitors. More people, said Mejia, are drawn to their facilities based on the technology being used. The trainers are more in-tune with clients, allowing them to provide a better service.
Crunch began to use dotFIT after researching online the various technology tools that were available. The company implemented the top runners into one or two clubs — a typical step they take with new technology. The most successful was then rolled out nationwide.
Technology has a future in personal training it seems, and Mejia said Crunch will continue to look for innovative ways to grow the business. “Technology is going to really allow us to expand beyond the four walls of our traditional offerings … and it’s going to allow us to really expand ourselves through the internet and all the technology that’s out there to help service our members even when they’re not in the club,” he said
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Emily Harbourne is the former assistant editor of Club Solutions Magazine.
