100 Starting Strength gyms in 5 years

[KyleSchuant]

I think it's useful to look back at this old article of Rip's. To my mind it's the one that best represents his driving philosophy - not all the stuff about low-bar vs high-bar, or covid being a fraud or whatever, but why he gets up in the morning and yells at his gym members to drive their arse out of the bottom of the squat, and types angrily online.

https://startingstrength.com/article/in ... _increases

"The typical new gym member comes three of four times on schedule, misses the next two workouts, comes one more time, and then never comes back. [...] I know that I have about 4 workouts in which to change something – preferably something they can see in the mirror – to even have a chance to keep them paying dues. And I need the money. As a practical matter, I figured out a long time ago that the easiest way to make the human body look different in the shortest period of time possible was to make it stronger, and that the easiest way to guarantee that this happened was to add weight to the bar every time the member shows up."

Both for member results and a gym owner's income, we need people to keep coming. It doesn't matter how brilliant the training is if they don't do it. And if the training's awful but non-injurious they keep doing it, well they're still better off than at home on the couch. Blasting them so they get their sweat on for an hour is going to do that. But showing them tangible, measurable changes in four sessions does that, too.

The question is which works better for long-term retention. And anyone who says they know the answer to that is lying, because if they did they'd be running a huge chain of financially successful gyms with everyone ranting feverishly about their results. At most we might say that it's different markets based on people's personalities, but then we get dangerously close to saying, "we're narrow-casting" which always sounded to me like trying to avoid saying, "shit, I dunno."

How do you make them show up?

[CheekiBreekiFitness]

@KyleSchuant I think that the easiest way to make the human body look different in the shortest period of time possible is actually to make it leaner, not stronger. People in the fitness industry understand this very well, and this is why the overwhelming majority of the before/after pictures always have the person in a lean state for the after picture.

Now how to make people come back, that's a good question, but my guess is that most people were not going to come back, regardless of what training modality you offer to them. Fitness is just not that important to them.

[mikeylikey]

@KyleSchuant @CheekiBreekiFitness et al.

I thought it was established around these parts that getting people to show up is exactly the opposite of what you need for a gym to be profitable.

[CheekiBreekiFitness]

@KyleSchuant @CheekiBreekiFitness et al.

I thought it was established around these parts that getting people to show up is exactly the opposite of what you need for a gym to be profitable.

Exactly. The ultimate gym would be, from the point of view of business:

- boutique gym with only free weights (so that you save on the rent and equipment)
- all memberships are 10 years minimum
- only nonathletic, rich clients, with a busy schedule who'll probably give up after the first few sessions

There's no money to be made from bodybuilders, powerlifters and meatheads.

[mbasic]

The Starting Strength Coach credential is widely recognized as the most valuable certification in the industry

It’s one thing for them to be up their own asses in their own little circle jerk, but this crosses the line into outright falsehood. I don’t get any sense that the author is a bad guy, but perhaps just unintelligent. I felt dickish writing that but I can’t come up with another explanation for this sort of earnest delusion.

In this context ...if pressed on this.... I'm sure their defense would be "the industry" means the industry of coaching at a SSFgym .... and in that case, the SSCert IS the most valuable cert widely recognized. Its the only way you are gonna coach at an SSFG.

I could say the same for the XFit level 1 ... its the most vaulable cert for the industry.

In one way, he does have a point. The other certs don't really show/teach one HOW to coach the lifts.

The again, you'd be better off getting a NCSM, CSCS, BS in kinesiology or whatever to coach at anywhere else.... school, college, pro sports team, etc.

The bar is pretty low for ALL these certs, so bragging your cert is "better than" is kinda meh. I know a 23 y.o. dude who ALL HE DOES is coach youth sports athletes .... 1-on-1, or small group settings (not weight training tho) . Full time job. Makes a decent living. No student loans. No college. No certifications of any kind. Trains kids at a public park, keeps the training gear in the back of his car.....almost no overhead. Took him maybe 2-1/2 years to grow his business.

[mbasic]

@KyleSchuant I think that the easiest way to make the human body look different in the shortest period of time possible is actually to make it leaner, not stronger. People in the fitness industry understand this very well, and this is why the overwhelming majority of the before/after pictures always have the person in a lean state for the after picture.

Mike Isratel had a good video on this recently:

"You have 4-8 weeks to make the most impactful visual appearance change (good way), say for a wedding, or short-notice-role-in-a-movie".

Answer is (from the pro-strength-training-body-builder-Dr.-guy)? It was diet like a mother fucker, cardio, and just enough weights to keep muscle-wasting at bay as much as possible .... but weight training was a tertiary concern.
The main idea was, you can't/don't put on enough muscle fast enough in that time period to make much of a visual difference at all.... and one can loose fat a whole hell of a lot faster....and allow what existing muscle you have (and hopefully not lose in the crash diet) to show from the aforementioned fat loss.

If you got a year, that might be a different story ( <-- my words).

[Seafoam]

I truly believe Mark Rippetoe despises those who have helped him the most. His contributors, colleagues, clients, and employees are all seen at best as a paycheck and at worst “fucking pussies.” I can’t tell you his motivation(s) for getting up and yelling everyday, but my gut tells me it’s not for altruistic purposes.

[mgil]

I truly believe Mark Rippetoe despises those who have helped him the most. His contributors, colleagues, clients, and employees are all seen at best as a paycheck and at worst “fucking pussies.” I can’t tell you his motivation(s) for getting up and yelling everyday, but my gut tells me it’s not for altruistic purposes.

When Rogue released the B&R barbell (2.0) as an in house brand, I remember Rip being clear about not getting any money from the sales of this barbell. He did receive several free barbells to try, but that didn’t seem to be enough.

Note that Rogue improved the York or whoever version of the original version.

I remember Rip selling his BMWs at nearly double fair market value.

He always whines about not making money in his gym, but there are almost no members because he runs so many off.

It’s always been about money. The dude has a degree in geology. He got that degree when anyone that wasn’t a total idiot could get into the petroleum industry in Texas and make some decent money. And if he was in classes with actual peeps that went into petroleum engineering, then he’s likely doubly pissed. I know of a retired petroleum engineer here local that moved up to be near her daughter while she was in college (Ivy League of course) but isn’t all that close because her multimillion dollar home is in an exclusive area on one of the islands here.

Just a guess, but maybe he’s just really jealous and petty? No one is hiring a dude that failed calculus 5 times as an intellectual.

It’s all so fucking weird.

[Seafoam]

I truly believe Mark Rippetoe despises those who have helped him the most. His contributors, colleagues, clients, and employees are all seen at best as a paycheck and at worst “fucking pussies.” I can’t tell you his motivation(s) for getting up and yelling everyday, but my gut tells me it’s not for altruistic purposes.

When Rogue released the B&R barbell (2.0) as an in house brand, I remember Rip being clear about not getting any money from the sales of this barbell. He did receive several free barbells to try, but that didn’t seem to be enough.

Note that Rogue improved the York or whoever version of the original version.

I remember Rip selling his BMWs at nearly double fair market value.

He always whines about not making money in his gym, but there are almost no members because he runs so many off.

It’s always been about money. The dude has a degree in geology. He got that degree when anyone that wasn’t a total idiot could get into the petroleum industry in Texas and make some decent money. And if he was in classes with actual peeps that went into petroleum engineering, then he’s likely doubly pissed. I know of a retired petroleum engineer here local that moved up to be near her daughter while she was in college (Ivy League of course) but isn’t all that close because her multimillion dollar home is in an exclusive area on one of the islands here.

Just a guess, but maybe he’s just really jealous and petty? No one is hiring a dude that failed calculus 5 times as an intellectual.

It’s all so fucking weird.

Do not discount the motivation of others to appear generous. It also says “ I do not need the money, I have enough.” It’s a twofer for the Rippetoe types.

[KyleSchuant]

I thought it was established around these parts that getting people to show up is exactly the opposite of what you need for a gym to be profitable.

That's one model, yeah. Basically what the unstaffed 24hr gyms bank on.

But for other kinds of gyms, not so much. Plus it's depressing sitting alone in your gym on a Tuesday night. The people I've known get into the industry are split fairly evenly into the dorks who don't know what else to do with their lives, and just treat it the way they'd treat being a barista or delivery driver or something - they do it for a year or so, make bugger all money and disappear. Some of them say something stupid like, "hey, I'll be paid to get fit!" but really they just have no clue.

The other half are people who genuinely want to help people. Now, obviously they have to make money, too. You can't help anyone if you can't pay your own bills in the meantime, and you can help a lot more people with $1 million than you can with $1,000. But helping people is something they genuinely want to do - same sort of motivation as most doctors, paramedics and so on.

Both making money and helping people requires that they show up. The making money is less dependent on their showing up, since as we've all discussed, people can just pay and forget about it, or have a small direct debit going out of their account, and so on. But still, if they don't show up they will eventually stop paying.

And longer-term, your business needs people to bring their friends. Because people move house, change jobs, get married or divorced, have children and so on, your gym will lose members over time even if they're all super-dedicated people. So you have to be trying to grow even just to stay still in income. The most reliable way to grow is for people to bring their friends. And it's the people who come regularly who tell their friends to come with them. So even just maintaining your current business requires that people show up.

That's why if you watch the local gyms carefully, you'll see a lot of them go through this 2-4 year cycle of opening, building up, stagnating, declining and then closing. Sometimes there'll be a smart businessperson behind them who gets to the stagnation point and then sells to someone who's never owned a gym before. If your Acme 24hr gym becomes a Beta 24hr gym then you watch, it'll be closed within 12 months.

So yeah, you can have a gym business run for a few years where nobody comes. But if you want to run it for a decade or more, you've got to get people to come. If you're not good at that then you have to write a book, do a podcast or run seminars for trainers. Again: you can be an awesome trainer, that doesn't mean you can get people to show up. Different skills. Calling people lazy or saying things like "narrowcasting" has some truth to it, but mostly it's just a roundabout way of saying, "I don't know how to make them show up."

There's always been more money in training trainers than in training the general public. Just think of the SS stuff - it's currently $995 for the SS seminar. They usually have 15-25 people a seminar, call it 20 and that's $20k. Now compare with ongoing training, SSFG Boston is $405 a month, Orlando is $365 as is Cincinatti, and so on. So one weekend brings in the same income as about 50 SSFG gym members, spread over 6-8 groups of 6-8 people doing 3x90' sessions a week. ~20hr work over a weekend vs ~120hr work over a month - usually split between early mornings and evenings. Or put another way, you could train one class of 4-5 people for 12 months, or do one group of 20 for one weekend. Hmmm.

Obviously not just anyone can pop out a regular weekend seminar and expect people to pony up a grand each to come. So fair play to the Rips and Pavels of the world who've made it happen, they've put the work in. Point is, there's a lot more money in training people for one weekend than there is in training them ongoing. But you're not changing any lives in a weekend. So if you do want to train people ongoing and really help them, you've got to get them to show up.

The ultimate gym would be, from the point of view of business:

- boutique gym with only free weights (so that you save on the rent and equipment)
- all memberships are 10 years minimum
- only nonathletic, rich clients, with a busy schedule who'll probably give up after the first few sessions

I have trained exactly one person like you describe. He did about six sessions, and had paid $2,400 in all. He referred absolutely nobody to train with me. Good money for the time spent with him - then zero since

Meanwhile I had a doc who trained with me and referred me a paramedic who over the years has referred me her doc husband and three paramedics; a schoolteacher who referred me her boyfriend and his mother; an IT guy who brought his son; a primary school teacher who brought his girlfriend, his uncle who brought his daughter, now his girlfriend's mum; and so on. Altogether three people responsible for... I dunno, well over $120k in income. Those three are ones who showed up.

Same as restaurants, really. Regulars are the guts of the place.

[CheekiBreekiFitness]

@mgil @Seafoam I think that his motivation is (at least partly) to appear as a figure of authority and be surrounded by a community of people who look up to you.

Actually I feel that the majority of people in the fitness sphere have this tendency, which is why the industry can sometimes be so cultish.

[KyleSchuant]

5 years have now passed, let's check in.

https://startingstrength.com/gyms

As of today, their site lists 28 SS franchise gyms, all in the USA. They have, too, 13 affiliate gyms, one of which is in Brussels, and another in Singapore. There are 102 SSCs worldwide, with 2 in the UK, South Korea and Singapore, 1 in each of Belgium, Portugal, Israel and Australia.

I would observe that they have consistently had around 100 SSCs for - well, ten years.

[mgil]

I wonder what is keeping the number of SSCs constant around 100?

Something tells me that the organization doesn’t really have the bandwidth to maintain meaningful contact with the coaches such that they are inclined to stay and/or has not come to terms with reasonable requirements to maintain the certification long term.

You’ve brought that number up before, Kyle, and I don’t know if that’s been fully analyzed be the organization. I wonder if they’d considered that to have 100 SSFGs up and running, they’d probably need at least 2 SSCs per gym to cover hours. But not all SSCs will live near or work in an SSFG.

Rip is reticent to provide a new edition of the book, as the content hasn’t really changed. That’s over a decade now, I believe. It also looks like entry standards have been lowered for SSCs. However, they still don’t stick around. So either there is a problem with the organization culturally or it’s too much money/time/effort to maintain the certification. I remember SSCs needing to be at the conference at least once every three years which seemed excessive for long time coaches. It mainly seemed like Rip wanted to control the content his coaches were providing despite what their own professional experience was providing them.

It really comes down to the idea that the WFAC model doesn’t work well outside of WFAC. Hell, it doesn’t really work at WFAC. While my apathy has grown over the years, I still see snippets of people training at an SSFG and quite often I see them having to use non-standard equipment like bowed barbells or SSBs. It also seems like they last around 3-6 months and then plateau. Interesting.

Looking across the fitness domain, there has been a shift in training, primarily because a lot of the people that helped push powerlifting back into the spotlight 10 years ago are old and beat up. People need to vary stimulus and rotate lifts to deal with joint arthritis and tendon issues. A bare bones gym that supports 4 lifts and minor variants isn’t going to serve any lifting population long term. And since a gym is a business that would seem to benefit from long term clientele, the SSFG model seems unlikely to work.

[hector]

I wonder what is keeping the number of SSCs constant around 100?

Something tells me that the organization doesn’t really have the bandwidth to maintain meaningful contact with the coaches such that they are inclined to stay and/or has not come to terms with reasonable requirements to maintain the certification long term.

You’ve brought that number up before, Kyle, and I don’t know if that’s been fully analyzed be the organization. I wonder if they’d considered that to have 100 SSFGs up and running, they’d probably need at least 2 SSCs per gym to cover hours. But not all SSCs will live near or work in an SSFG.

Rip is reticent to provide a new edition of the book, as the content hasn’t really changed. That’s over a decade now, I believe. It also looks like entry standards have been lowered for SSCs. However, they still don’t stick around. So either there is a problem with the organization culturally or it’s too much money/time/effort to maintain the certification. I remember SSCs needing to be at the conference at least once every three years which seemed excessive for long time coaches. It mainly seemed like Rip wanted to control the content his coaches were providing despite what their own professional experience was providing them.

It really comes down to the idea that the WFAC model doesn’t work well outside of WFAC. Hell, it doesn’t really work at WFAC. While my apathy has grown over the years, I still see snippets of people training at an SSFG and quite often I see them having to use non-standard equipment like bowed barbells or SSBs. It also seems like they last around 3-6 months and then plateau. Interesting.

Looking across the fitness domain, there has been a shift in training, primarily because a lot of the people that helped push powerlifting back into the spotlight 10 years ago are old and beat up. People need to vary stimulus and rotate lifts to deal with joint arthritis and tendon issues. A bare bones gym that supports 4 lifts and minor variants isn’t going to serve any lifting population long term. And since a gym is a business that would seem to benefit from long term clientele, the SSFG model seems unlikely to work.

There’s no promise of being jacked and tan at the end.
Only promise is strength.
When you realize your gym can’t do intermediate programming and you stall, that the strength promise is a lie, what are you paying those crazy dues for?

Even if you don’t want to get strong, if you just want to grind your dick into the dirt alternating 3x5 and Old Man Texas Method forever, you’ll figure out pretty quickly that you can do this at home or a globo for much less than the several hundred dollars per month a SSG charges.

[KyleSchuant]

I wonder what is keeping the number of SSCs constant around 100?

In general, the fitness industry has a higher turnover than many. Fitness is like hospitality in that it has a low barrier to entry, and offers mostly low-paid casual part-time work. A trainer friend of mine has written about this, and mentions a figure of 20% of new trainers making it to 5 years, the rest have given up by then. If the same numbers hold for SSCs, then if today in 2023 we have 100 SSCs, then by 2028 only 20 of them will be left, and we need 80 more. That's 16 a year.

They do 10 seminars a year on average, so they'd need 1-2 new SSCs every seminar just to keep the total number the same. And last I checked a few years back, they got 1-2 a seminar - sometimes none, sometimes 3. Usually 1-2. The total remaining steady around 100 suggests this hasn't changed.

We do know they've lost a few to BBL and BBM, but those organisations are smaller than the total SSCs (with 57 and 19 respectively, though not all coaches) and BBL at least has a bit of overlap with people like Sullivan, so that's not it.

Now, a person could argue that SS selects those who are more intelligent and dedicated so they'll stick with it longer, etc. But if this is so, well the intelligent and dedicated person is going to have all sorts of job opportunities, not just in the fitness world. So if they wanted more coaches they'd have to lower their standards.

I think it's just normal fitness industry attrition. To get higher you'd need people to feel that barbells were the One True Tool etc. And while some of us might agree with that, the fact is that the clients probably won't - most people don't aspire to pull 500lbs or whatever, relatively light weights give them profound changes in the first year, and then they move on to other stuff. To stay they need something else holding them, like the community at the place.

Edit: probably interesting for us to revisit this old thread of mine about the fitness industry in 2017. There I noted that Crossfit seemed to be at saturation, with eg Australia having ~580 for since 2014. Looking at their map today there are 456. The UK in 2017 had 542, now 562. I said then,

Most new Crossfits I see in Melbourne actually equip themselves from another Crossfit that's closed. Just think about it: even if half the places last 10 years, that's 286 closing over 10 years, one each fortnight.

Yeah, pandemic and lockdowns and recessions and all that. But it's not like it leapt up 2018-2019 then plummeted. It's just fitness. Attrition.

[mbasic]

I wonder what is keeping the number of SSCs constant around 100?

It would seem if they want a 100 SSFGs, and there's only 100 SSCs to go 'round .... well, its seems NOW when you go for SSC certification, there's probably a some kind of expectation you are going to be working at, or being a part of, a SSFG (whether you want to or not). That wasn't the case 5-6 years ago before.

What I describe above is not 100%-so, but it sure looks like its heading that way.
So I would imagine some people don't want to do 'that'.
Hence maybe a/another reason for why the number of SSCs doesn't grow.

Man, that's really odd, you'd think with 23 SSFGs to spread the gospel around, you'd manufacture some more SSCs .... with their apprentice program or whatever, that's would be a good testing ground for prospective coaches, a place to learn to coach, Guinea pigs to practice coaching on, etc.

I bet this is just the same fixed subset of people; pyramid scheme won't work if the base doesn't grow.


Peeking at the Barbell Logic staff page its the same story: About 50, which is what they've always had. About 50 coaches, a lot of people listed on that page ain't coaches, just admin/clerical/etc

======================

lol, haven't looked at anything BLOC for a while

doesn't look like a typical good morning to me, looks something I would do to make fun of an SS-low-bar-squat



I'm not an expert on this stuff, but aren't these called Yates Rows, not barbell rows.



For Reynolds, you'd thing this stuff would be more ..... typical / correct.

[Renascent]

doesn't look like a typical good morning to me, looks something I would do to make fun of an SS-low-bar-squat

I'd imagine that someone doing them as demonstrated in the video might be trying to work around some funky feeling at the front of the hips. As long as the knee angle doesn't change throughout, the effect should be mostly the same as a better-looking good morning (with maybe slightly less glute contribution).

...aren't these called Yates Rows, not barbell rows.

Underhand grip = Yates row.

[quikky]

That seems like a GM meant more to be a low bar squat accessory. The wider stance with shoved out knees is going to bring in a lot of adductor, and the flexed knees less hamstring and more glute.

[CheekiBreekiFitness]

It's a "powerlifting good morning"

https://www.westside-barbell.com/blogs/ ... od-morning

Also, about the "Yates row" I always found it ironical that Yates tore his biceps doing "Yates rows".

[mbasic]

It's a "powerlifting good morning"

https://www.westside-barbell.com/blogs/ ... od-morning

Also, about the "Yates row" I always found it ironical that Yates tore his biceps doing "Yates rows".

article you linked: "When executing a powerlifting good morning, you want to mimic your conventional deadlift movement pattern as much as possible. Ultimately, that is why we use this exercise, to mimic the deadlift while avoiding the recovery times associated with max effort deadlifts. So, when you perform a powerlifting good morning, imagine that you are performing a conventional deadlift, except the barbell is on your back."

It seems like the guy in the BLOC demo video is doing more of a squat-good morning, than a deadlift-good-morning.
I've always seen it with your feet closer together, toes forward, and your butt goes way back, with minimal knee bend.