In a quick 4 minute read, learn why workout tracking and benchmark tracking is a key to building a successful CrossFit gym.
"When performance is measured, performance improves. When performance is measured and reported back, the rate of improvement accelerates."
– Pearson’s Law
Are You Tracking Workouts In Your Gym?
Workout tracking allows members of a gym to keep track of their past and current benchmark performances. This allows them to see if they are progressing in their fitness goals.
This can be an especially motivating tool for those who are new to CrossFit because it lets them see how far they've come!
Gyms With Workout Tracking Succeed
We surveyed the gyms on PushPress that leverage one form of workout tracking or another. What we found was interesting!
Gyms using workout tracking made 92.1% more in the month of August than the gyms on PushPress that do not use workout tracking.
Almost double. That’s a huge differential! Now, there’s a number of reasons going into this, it’s not solely workout tracking...
For instance I could easily argue the gyms that opt to use workout tracking are slightly more advanced and mature than those who aren’t using workout tracking - so of course.
Perhaps they’re older, more established, or in more affluential areas. Regardless there’s a host of reasons why adding workout tracking to your arsenal at your gym might help improve your member retention and value.
Let’s dig into why gyms using workout tracking seem to make more than gyms who do not.
Humans Love Progress.
Without progress, all investment is a failure.
We are all human - and humans love to see progress in things they put their energy and time into. You members are no different - they signed up for your gym to see results, and it's your job to show them progress towards those results.
Workout Tracking Proves Progress.
Show your members progress and they will stay members longer and be apt to pay more for your services.
Gone are the days where people are ok with "feeling" like they are getting results at your gym.
In todays day and age, people expect to see measured and tracked progress towards their fitness objectives. Information that allows them to see and measure their growth.
In many CrossFit gyms, the goal of the client is to increase general fitness, across all modalities. With one simple tool, you can do this - showing your members that not only is their cardio betting better, but so is their strength, explosiveness, sprinting, and athleticism.
Workout Tracking Also Shows Weaknesses To Members
Your members will spend more time and money on things they can objectively see needs to focus.
One key element of workout tracking in your CrossFit gym is to show your members where they can devote some extra effort.
If you have the data to point out that, while their short time domain cardio fitness is getting much better.... it looks like their strength and their long time domain cardio fitness isn't.
This can give your clients something to focus more attention to, if it fits into their goals.
This is critical in both providing long term value to your clients as well as giving people more things to push towards. That will create longer lasting memberships and more revenue for your gym!
Workout Tracking Creates Community & Camaraderie
People quit gym memberships all the time. They do not quit communities they feel entrenched in.
(Sorry Stu, I'm sure I butchered that, but credit where credit is due...)
Simply put - Creating community in your gym is vital for member retention.
As we all know - building a strong and welcoming community is your number one way to help new members get indoctrinated into your gym and keep existing members coming back year after year.
Workout tracking also allows member to form a natural community around the results.
Whether it is stack ranking the members with the best results as the leaders of the gym, or it's forming a smaller community around the people who are at the bottom of the results pile - the communities get built.
Leadership Is Critical To Community
In any community there is an important aspect of leadership and hierarchy. While you do not want your gym to turn into a tribal pack where people are headhunting for the top spot of leadership - having a recognized group of leaders in your gym is a good thing.
Niche Pockets Of Community Strengthens Your Gym
Tracking results also allows you to break out niche communities in your gym.
For example, if you allow your endurance focused members to rally around certain workouts and benchmarks, that allows them to build their niche community within your gym.
The fire-breathers, the endurance athletes, the "always last in the class" groups... they all fare better when they can fold into their own social structure.
Whether you surface it or not, all of the communities exist in your gym, you might as well rally around it and help make it a strong point.
Workout Tracking Creates Competition
Building a system that fosters results for members will drive more revenue to your gym than anything else.
Iron sharpens iron. The drive for humans to compete with each other is baked into our DNA from tribal days with simple social hierarchies.
Studies have shown that the number one motivator to fitness is... competition!
In fact this recent study showed that a control group fueled by competition showed up and worked out 90% more than the control group with no external motivation.
Workout tracking helps to create a measurable, competitive environment in your gym. Your members will subconsciously start putting an extra 10% into every workout - knowing their score will be recorded.
Stack an extra 10% effort over months and years and the results will be undeniable.
CrossFit Style Gyms Are Data Driven and Results Based
CrossFit was founded as a data driven science backed fitness protocol and it has grown into a worldwide movement which focuses on functional movements, intelligent exercise prescription and scalability.
CrossFit style gyms, such as Behemoth Gym in Cypress, TX or CrossFit South Bay in Hermosa Beach, CA are the epicenter of this movement and any successful CrossFit gym must be data-driven and able to produce results for its members.
Workout tracking systems are a way to prove that your workouts are producing results for your members.
