IOL Strength and Conditioning

Seems like such a great dream – noble even – to build a dungeon where heavy iron hits the floor and bumper plates are heaved smoothly overhead. Instead… I look in the crystal and see a three-year nightmare that ends with you and your best-bud training partner feuding, your back account empty (or worse, owing borrowed money), and the IRS hounding you for unpaid payroll taxes. It’s a heartbreaker.

We hear from people weekly, either by email or in the forum, writing of their amazing plans to build their dream gym. They write to share their excitement, or perhaps to get a tip or two from someone who built and ran a couple of gyms over a fifteen-year period.

Each time we have the opportunity, both Dave and I do our best to talk the planner down from the lofty heights and back to reality. In only one instance do I know of a person who stuck with the plans after our badgering, and who’s truly made a go of it in the health club business. All others had everything going against them, aside from their immeasurable enthusiasm. Unfortunately, in a business that can be compared in difficulty with the restaurant industry, enthusiasm simply isn’t enough.

Your gym business, odd as this may sound, will be competing with every outdoor fitness activity… running… walking… biking… swimming. If your community enjoys good weather, this is a negative in your business plan.

• My first goal in jotting these notes is to talk you out of it.

• My second is to convince you you don’t have enough money set aside for it to work.

• Failing both of my real goals, my final goal is to get you to a Thomas Plummer workshop before you sign a building lease, and certainly before opening day.

It’s true you can build a dungeon-like gym on a shoestring, some tenant improvement money and an equipment lease. But you can’t make it run on that, and the reality will become real, real clear about three months after opening day. The joy of building and opening the gym will fade as you discover the rent’s due, the checkbook’s short, and all those guys from the foofoo gym who said they’d be over on Day One are still back at 24/7 waiting either for the rest of their eighteen-month membership to run out, or for you to find the money for the bumper plates you promised.

When’s that reverse hyper going to be delivered, anyway? Oh, right. You borrowed enough money from your home mortgage payment for the equipment, but still don’t have enough to cover the freight.

And you know what? That’s exactly how it’s going to go for most enthusiastic independent gym owners. Here’s what happens: We have great passion for our gyms, and we know – just know – we can run ours better than the gym where we currently train. A few training buds get together, jabbering about a bunch of great-sounding ideas, and they’re off, cruising the town looking for an empty warehouse to hold a huge pile of iron.

None of the chatterers have a lick of business experience; no one even knows which permits need to be purchased, let alone what city, county or state department issues said permits. This isn’t uncommon, this enthusiasm coupled with a lack of business acumen, but in our industry it’s rampant. Add in lack of free capital and we’re hearing a death rattle; it’s a killer.

If you find yourself reflected in the above paragraphs, opening a gym is likely to wipe out your retirement savings — assuming you have any, big assumption in today’s economy – or it’ll ruin your friendships and possibly your marriage.

I know you’re enthusiastic, excited, eager and can barely temper your glee, and that’s why I scratched out all this negativity. You need to hear it.

Late edit for those who can’t contain their gym-building excitement: Here’s Zach EvenEsh on how to run a successful gym.