As a gym owner, you know the intense amount of work that goes into developing an enjoyable yet challenging workout routine.
Programming expertise comes through trial and error. Personal experience. Health and wellness knowledge. And, if you do it right, a wealth of feedback from your members and coaches.
Workout tracking software streamlines that process for you. It gives you the historical workout data, programming capabilities, and athlete interaction you need to:
- Strengthen your gym’s community.
- Encourage your athletes to form good habits.
- Evaluate the effectiveness of your programming.
- Keep your gym accessible and top of mind.
4 benefits of using workout tracking software at your gym
1. Build your community
Community is a huge part of what you do.
Workout tracking software takes your community to the next level by making it easier for members to share their successes together.
Good software should have a built-in way for athletes to encourage one another. For example, SugarWOD allows athletes to give each other virtual fist bumps. It also allows your coaches to directly interact with your athletes and leave comments and updates.
You’re working hard to make sure that your gym members know that you care about them as individuals. With an athlete app, you enable them to support each other as well.
2. Help athletes create positive habits
Building new positive habits is hard.
Most of us know someone who bought a gym membership – probably as part of a New Year’s resolution – and then never used it.
Part of the problem is that it’s difficult for new members to see how they’re benefiting from your training, since results aren’t instantaneous. Making a radical change in their lifestyle is also a daunting prospect.
Forbes writer Heather Cherry explains a common hurdle with habit formation:
“You didn’t develop all of your bad habits at once, and you certainly can’t change them that quickly either. Instead of adopting the ‘all or nothing’ mentality, opt to develop a plan focusing on small success moments.”
By using workout tracking software, you give your members the opportunity to develop their own fitness plan. And you can be there to help them follow through.
This also is where good gym culture comes into play. Cherry emphasizes that it’s crucial to celebrate small wins when trying to develop good habits.
Having a positive gym culture where everyone can see group progress allows your members to get positive feedback from their coaches and peers. This camaraderie will encourage them to stay on target.
3. Evaluate your gym’s programming
A good workout tracking software won’t just serve your customers — it’ll also give you a trove of data that you and your coaches can use to evaluate your own programming.
It’s important for gyms to stay competitive. Having the ability to easily evaluate the effectiveness of your programming makes it easier for you to stay ahead of your competition.
Most notably, these insights can help you provide a better customer service experience. It’s critical for your success as a gym that members feel as though they’re being cared for on a personal level.
Part of the reason people come to small local gyms is a desire for community. Constant improvements to programming and exceptional customer service will help you retain your members.
4. Make working out easily accessible
One of the best things about workout tracking software is that it’s available to your members on their phones.
While it’s certainly true that you could utilize pen and paper or a whiteboard to keep track of scores, it wouldn’t be nearly as efficient. Those methods are best for in-gym prep, not for historical workout data.
Besides, whiteboards get erased. Having workout tracking software means that everyone in your gym can track their own progress for as long as they’re a member. They’ll be able to see for themselves the effectiveness of your programming and actively work toward hitting that next PR.
Interested in workout tracking? Try SugarWOD!
If you’re looking for software that can provide you with workout tracking and give you better control of your gym programming, consider SugarWOD.
SugarWOD offers:
- Simple program management
- Analytics to help you track the performance of your gym
- Automated publishing of workouts
- A Marketplace with supplemental programming from accomplished athletes and coaches
- An athlete app that encourages community building
- And many other features!
If you’d like more evidence of the benefits of workout tracking, check out these testimonials from gym owners who have seen a massive improvement in what they can offer their members since they started using SugarWOD.