Corey Hilton has seen YouFit from every angle. He joined the company at its inception — when it was still YouFit Health Clubs — starting at the front desk and working his way through sales, operations and personal training before moving into multi-club management, and eventually overseeing facilities and construction nationwide. That journey now finds him at the helm of the brand’s most ambitious project yet: two new locations in Boynton Beach and Davie, Florida, designed from scratch under the YouFit Gyms name.
“I started at the bottom — at an entry level position in high school,” said Hilton. “Worked my way up through every rank, wore every hat more or less in the industry.” That hands-on history shapes everything about how he approaches the member experience and why these two new clubs feel like a defining moment for the brand.
From Health Club to Gym: A Brand Evolution
YouFit began as YouFit Health Clubs, sporting vibrant purple and green branding and cardio floors with up to 30 treadmills. The rebrand to YouFit Gyms in 2021 marked a deliberate shift: neutral colors, a stronger emphasis on strength training, HIIT, small group training, and recovery, and a meaningful reduction in traditional cardio equipment — treadmills, for example, have been cut by roughly half.
That shift wasn’t made on instinct. Equipment trackers revealed that cardio utilization was down — sometimes by 30% or more — with ellipticals declining the most sharply. Stair masters and steppers remained in demand. Member NPS surveys and targeted questionnaires added the qualitative layer. And conversations at industry events confirmed the trend was broadly felt.
A Blank Canvas
Previous YouFit renovations required working within existing shells — navigating knee walls, isolated rooms and fixed footprints that limited how far the redesign could go. The Boynton Beach and Davie locations are different: open-concept spaces in the higher 30,000-square-foot range where the team could start from zero.
The layout reflects exactly what members have been asking for:
- Turf areas running 60 to 65 feet long and nearly 40 feet wide
- A massive dumbbell selection
- Platforms
- Plate-loaded and selectorized machines
- Group fitness and small group training spaces
- And a recovery area visible from throughout the club
“Being able to have that creativity and work with the architects or the designers from the beginning to really shape what we wanted it to look like, the functionality, the member pathways, so to speak, how they can navigate the gym, what they’re looking for specifically,” said Hilton.
Serving the Pickleball Moment
The Boynton Beach location features something none of the brand’s prior clubs have offered: two dedicated indoor pickleball courts, separated from the main gym floor that delivers members into an entirely distinct space.
“When you walk through the hallway, then you enter the pickleball court where you’re not going to hear a lot of that noise,” explained Hilton. “It’s all canceled out. Now you’re in a whole essentially new experience.”
YouFit has incorporated pickleball into some existing clubs by repurposing group fitness rooms, but Boynton Beach is the first to offer courts built specifically and solely for the sport. “These are dedicated specifically to pickleball, and we can’t wait to show the world,” said Hilton.
What’s Next for YouFit
With Boynton Beach slated to open mid-March 2026 and Davie following in mid-April, YouFit is treating these two clubs as the new template for the brand going forward. Additional openings are planned for 2026 and into 2027, with the Southeast Florida market serving as the company’s base for broader expansion.
At the same time, YouFit is working to bring its existing portfolio up to the same standard. Hilton describes the evolution in phases — cosmetic color updates post-COVID-19 were Phase 1; the deeper layout and equipment refresh seen recently in Dania Beach is Phase 2; Boynton Beach and Davie represent the full vision of Phase 3. The goal is to roll that standard across the rest of the portfolio while simultaneously opening new clubs.
Advice for Operators
For operators weighing their own rebrand or renovation, Hilton offers a straightforward framework: start with member experience, back it up with data and look beyond your own organization.
“Member experience is everything,” said Hilton. “Without our members, we would obviously cease to exist. So, member feedback is key. Aside from the feedback there, that data is also key — knowing what your audience and your members use. You want to pay attention to the usages. You want to pay attention to the life cycles of the fitness equipment.”
He also encourages operators to look outward. “Definitely reach out to your peers out in the industry, reach out to competitors or people who are in a similar position to you at other locations or other organizations,” he said. “Ask them what’s working for them, what’s not. I think we’re all in this journey together to give them the community. They want to make their lives better. We want to make sure we can do the same.”
