Keeping members engaged and motivated can be a major hurdle for athletic clubs and gym owners. Workout routines can start to feel stale, which leads to unachieved fitness goals, canceled membership, and lost revenue. Fortunately, there are ways to hit the reset button and ramp up member motivation with fun fitness challenges.
Why Are Challenges Effective Gym Motivators?
Exercise challenges are a type of gym competition that motivates members to accomplish a goal within a set time frame. Many fitness studios and clubs use gym challenges to engage members because they add an element of friendly competition and a sense of community that transforms monotonous routines.
You can benefit a lot from brainstorming a variety of fitness challenge ideas for your gym. Gym challenges encourage members to stay active by offering a fresh approach to fitness and a clear path to success. These competitions create a level of accountability and urgency that some members need to stay motivated and continue their fitness journeys.
Also, workout challenges are designed to be, well, challenging. While the goals are attainable, people must show up and do the work to complete the program. Seeing the results of their efforts can be incredibly motivating, and members will want to keep progressing even further.
9 Challenge Ideas To Motivate Gym Members
If you’re looking for new athletic challenges to engage members, there are a number of programs to consider. Just be sure that you’re providing members with specific details that will help them along the way, including:
- The specific goal of the challenge
- The time limit for achieving the goal
- Workout methods and instructions
- How to record and track progress
- Where to find support and encouragement
Here are a few strategies to improve engagement levels and keep members loyal to your gym and brand. You're sure to find a challenge that fits your membership demographics.
1. Calorie Burner Leaderboard
One of the top reasons people join gyms is to lose weight, and a key component of losing weight is burning calories. A calorie-burning challenge is always popular because it taps into the weight loss goal many members already have.
This simple challenge counts the number of calories participants burn over a set period and tracks their progress against each other. If your gym has a member app, there’s typically a place where you can initiate this challenge, allow members to join, and make the results viewable to challenge participants.
This also works well as a daily exercise challenge because it gives members the flexibility to complete their favorite workouts with the goal of maximizing their calorie burn for the day. In-app and on-demand workouts make it easier to track how many calories are burned per session.
2. Flexible Pretzel Challenge
The pretzel position is a fun fitness challenge for members who want to increase their flexibility, mobility, and range of motion. You can set a deadline for members to film themselves doing the pretzel pose for this flexibility challenge and post the video on social media using a specific hashtag or tagging your gym’s account.
To reward members for working on their flexibility, you might offer incentives like:
- A free month of membership
- Discounts on gym add-on services
- Free guest passes for friends or family
- Special mention on social media or your gym’s monthly newsletter
3. Gym Rat Challenge
If your gym is struggling with inconsistent attendance, you should incorporate attendance challenges into your member engagement efforts. This specific challenge involves motivating members to become “gym rats” by going to the gym a certain amount of days or hours per week. This challenge is mainly about getting members back into the gym rather than focusing on a particular type of fitness goal.
Exercise needs to become part of a person’s routine to make the most impact. According to the Cleveland Clinic, about five days of moderate cardio exercise and two days of strength training per week are ideal for a sustainable and healthy lifestyle. You can use these numbers as guidelines to create your gym rat challenge and push members to commit to a healthy lifestyle routine.
You can also use this challenge to target inactive members who have not been to the gym in a while. Start off slowly with a realistic goal of getting these members into the gym twice a week, then strategically ramp it up toward the end of the challenge with an incentive.
4. Healthy Eating Challenges
In addition to burning calories, the other component of weight loss is diet and nutrition. Rather than making all fitness contest ideas about exercise, you can also challenge members to improve their diets with healthy foods that fuel their bodies. Healthy eating challenges may include:
- Abstaining from junk food for 30 days
- Superfood monthly challenges
- New healthy recipe challenges
- Drinking a gallon of water every day for 30 days
- Clean-eating challenges
- Mindful eating challenges
Members can track their diets and log what they eat in their own food diaries. You will need to provide guidelines on what they should avoid, the types of food they should be eating, and tips to handle cravings. With a mobile app like Flex, you can incorporate nutrition content such as videos and articles from experts and even offer quick healthy recipes for members who are new to healthy eating.
Studies show that committing to a healthy diet can dramatically increase weight loss when done in tandem with physical activity. As members start to see results and gain confidence in their efforts, they are more likely to stay committed to their routine and motivated in their fitness journeys.
5. Statue Challenge
The statue challenge is a fitness competition to see which gym members can hold different exercises or poses the longest, including variations of the plank and squat.
As members participate in a plank challenge, squat challenge, or other type of statue challenge, they’ll strengthen their bodies, and may even experience less pain and boost their confidence in their abilities. Ultimately, this could motivate them to continue working toward their fitness goals in your gym.
6. Repetition Challenges
Another type of challenge that can get members motivated and excited about their progress is a repetition challenge. AMRAP (as many reps as possible) challenges are designed to push participants to their limits to see how many rounds of a particular exercise they can complete in a set time.
Popular AMRAP challenges include:
- Burpee challenge
- Weight lifting challenge
- Push-up challenge
- Squat challenge
AMRAP challenges focus on maximizing the amount of exercise in a short period, which can increase cardio fitness, calorie burn, and mental endurance. While members train for this challenge, it would be useful to provide a convenient way for them to track their reps on their mobile devices.
7. Fat Loss and Fitness Goals Challenge
Fitness goals and fat loss challenges are ideal for gym members who want to see results quickly and need accountability and a sense of community to keep them going. They may have a lot of weight to lose but have trouble sticking to a fitness routine on their own.
Fat loss and fitness challenges may involve measuring members’ body mass index (BMI) before, during, and after the challenge to keep track of exactly how much fat they’re shedding. These challenges require support with diet, exercise, and mindset goals to give participants a competitive edge and help them reach their full potential.
8. Holiday Fitness and Transformation Challenges
The holidays are a particularly difficult time to stay on top of fitness and healthy eating goals. Creating a holiday fitness or holiday transformation challenge is a great way to keep gym members motivated when surrounded by holiday temptations that could throw them off track.
Your holiday fitness challenge can start as early as October and end as late as January. However, November and December are when gym members can really struggle. Design a challenge that requires participants to hit weekly workout goals, track their weight, and check in with accountability partners to ensure they stick with the program.
The competitive part of this challenge will be determining who made the most dramatic transformation during the holiday season. This may involve measuring stats or simply reviewing before-and-after pictures of participants in their apps.
9. The Progressive Personal Best Challenge
Progressive personal best challenges are excellent motivators for busy members because they allow them to compete against themselves. You push them to want to keep improving their fitness levels, with only themselves to hold them back.
With these challenges, you can set metrics that measure their fitness and activity levels at the beginning of the challenge. For example, how long can they run on the treadmill, or how many on-demand videos did they complete in a week? Provide a way for them to record these numbers online or through your gym’s app.
As members progress through the challenge, they focus on beating their personal best numbers and improving their overall fitness levels. The participant who exceeds their personal best the most in a set time frame will win the challenge.
Boost Your Fitness Challenges With Fitness On Demand
With Fitness On Demand, you can create custom fitness challenges for your gym members to boost motivation, engagement, and retention rates at your fitness club. Learn more about our comprehensive fitness solution and engaging Flex App and how we can help you provide more value to your members by scheduling a demo today!
Author
Sean Obregon
Sean Obregon is an impactful Business Development Executive forming meaningful relationships to support enhancing operational and strategic success. He utilizes his industry knowledge and experience to create solutions that align with both the needs and wants of a customer, setting a business up for success.