Group exercise has turned into a commodity. People that figured out that high intensity exercise and eating real food leads to great results. And with that, many new gym franchises have burst onto the scene to cash in on that simple prescription. They charge rates lower than ours, have a fancier space, and even have more classes on the schedule.
But they also have giant marketing budgets, great branding, and massive classes with low overhead. So why aren’t we worried about them?
Because other gyms are not our competition. And because we sell individualized coaching, results, accountability, and community – not giant group exercise classes.
Group exercise may have turned into a commodity, but YOU are NOT a commodity. Orangetheory, FitBody Boot Camp, F45, Jazzercise, and even the 24 hour gyms all have one thing in common – they are models built on a low paid group leader (if they have a leader at all) and a choreographed workout set to music.
We operate on the philosophy of Good, Better, Best. We are happy that people are getting up and getting moving, so anything is most definitely better than nothing as far as your health and fitness goes. We get a lot of people at Recursive that started at one of the boot camp gyms and are now confident and ready for the next step. And we are so grateful that their first gym brought them to us!
Recursive designs workouts and meals that get you the results you want. Our programs offer the solution to your particular set of circumstances. We care about your fitness background, what’s going on in your life outside the gym (because it often affects what goes on in the gym), and if the workout you’re doing that day is a good fit for your goals.
Ideally, we would like to see people every day for workouts and nutrition programs. Realistically, we understand that most people don’t have the time or money to make that vision a reality. So instead we have people workout in small groups with other people that have similar goals. This allows us to provide guidance to a small group of people simultaneously. We are in a group, but we are still training each individual. We’ll all workout together, but each person’s overall wellness prescriptions might be different.
This is why we do one on one goal review sessions with each of our members every three months. These goal setting sessions are included in the cost of membership at Recursive because we know goals change, and even if they don’t, the plan to achieve them is constantly evolving.
Fitness isn’t just about sweating. If it were as simple as going to the gym to workout a few times a week and eating right we’d all have the body that we want. The truth is most of us know what we’re supposed to be doing, but we often fall short when it comes to holding ourselves accountable and being consistent. We don’t sell hour long choreographed sweat sessions, we sell results. And getting those results depends on two things: KNOWLEDGE and ACTION.
The Coaches at Recursive are here to remind you of your future self. We’re here to keep you on course. We’re here to hold you accountable.
When it comes right down to it, we are in the relationship business, not really the fitness business (gasp!) Coming up with an individualized plan, helping you implement that plan, and holding you accountable to it when things get tough all require one thing. A trusting relationship.
When you have a tough day we’re here to remind you that we care about you and your success. We’re here to tell you when you’ve done a great job, and when you can do better. We have your best interests in mind and we don’t want you to waste time (or money).
Sometimes that even means telling you to take some time AWAY from the gym. You might be shocked to hear this, but there’s been more than a handful of goal review sessions where we’ve told people they need to do more workouts outside and read some extra books. Did that cost us money in the short term? Of course, but we realize that it’s the best thing for the member at the time. And telling them what’s best develops trust.
The idea of competition in business is a divisive issue among other area gyms. This is unfortunate because at Recursive we believe that other gyms are not our competition at all.
- The couch is our competition.
- Diabetes is our competition.
- Sedentary lifestyles are our competition.
- Obesity is our competition.
- Poor health is our competition.
- Decrepitude is our competition.
- Running on a treadmill for hours a week with no effect is our competition.
- Countless bicep curls for no progress is our competition.
The world is full of reasons for people not to work out. THAT is our competition. That is really what we are fighting against. Everyone may have plenty of reasons not to work out, but there are even more urgent and compelling reasons for people to be working out.
We at Recursive and as a community are much better equipped to lead a health revolution in this world than any of us as individuals. Our goal at Recursive Fitness & Nutrition is to help people live a healthier and fuller life. If that happens to be at our gym, great! If it happens to be at a neighboring gym, that’s great too! At least we made a difference…together.