Digitalization in the Fitness Industry

Last week in Cologne, Germany – one of the world’s greatest fitness exhibition took place with over 20,000 attendants with 150+ exhibitors. Besides new workout routines and innovative machines, one great trend was more visible than other: TECHNOLOGY. Every stand, booth and stage demonstrated a new way, how the emerging tech solutions are going to revolutionize the way people practice sports, improve their life-style, their well-being. Let’s have a closer look on how technology is going to intertwine with off-line heavy weight lifting:

1.)    Gym management – Several exhibitors envisioned gyms, with no personnel. Sounds wired? From the point of online membership registration, unique IDs will let you enter to the gym, where your virtual and personal 3D coach going to walk you through your daily routine, motivate you during work-out and record your achievements when you are done. 

Now let’s dismantle the vision step-by-step:

a.)     Online membership management: A custom-made or white-label software is a cost-effective way to start your online administration. You can integrate payment solutions to the system, so when anytime your members check in with membership cards (or with fingerprints or retina-scanners, let alone face-recognition), their account is going to be charged. Scheduled reminders, notifications and special offers are a good way to keep your members engaged. 

b.)    As your member is inside the gym, new indoor positioning systems, tags and NFC readers now can track what is happening inside during a workout session. Smart meters, track the repetitions, frequencies and weights used during at each stage, recording the results to the member’s profile. Towel management is now also automatic and trackable. With your integrated gym-IT infrastructure, now you can easily personalize the workout experience for your members. 

c.)     In case of group sessions, the same personalized experience is now available, during a shared session. Like spinning machines automatically adjust seats and resistance according to the members’ preference, while holding a group training, with engaging screens and intergalactic roads screened on the wall.

Technology is going to bridge the online-offline world more seamlessly and with integrated software infrastructure mass-customization is possible. In the competitive gym-market, technology innovation and membership engagement are going to define your competitive edge.