LIFTS Episode 100 - Will Brereton of SH1FT on the Future of Group X, Instructors, and Hybrid Fitness

0:00The Times reported that gyms now beat pubs as Gen Z's preferred night out. Retention, especially retention in the early stage of a membership, is greatly increased by meaningful interaction. I would say that the average group fitness instructor is not as expert in group fitness instructing now as they were 20 years ago. Gyms and instructors need to accept that pay hasn't changed for 20 years. It's probably not going to change.

0:31Matthew Januszek:Welcome to this week's episode of LIFTs. I'm Matthew Januszek and I'm here with my co-host Mohamed Iqbal. It's good to be on and today we're talking about something that I'm excited about, I enjoy, I'm not sure if you're into it as much as I am. Now everyone's curious what are we talking about. We're talking about something that sits at the very center of the industry's identity and maybe one of its greatest retention engines which I I certainly believe, and that is group fitness. A few areas have evolved as dramatically or as quickly as group fitness, and a few people have had a front row seat to that evolution like our special co-host on today.

1:11Will Berriton, and I hope I got that right, is one of the most experienced voices in group fitness. He began as a Les Mills presenter back in the era where choreography and charisma and consistency were pillars of group exercise. He then became one of the early leaders at ClassPass UK. And Anil, you and I have spoken a few times, I think over the last year or two. And today, you're the founder of Shift Fitness, which is a digital-first, license-free instructor platform that's challenging the traditional model to marketizing content and empowering instructors to build real communities. Will, it's incredible to have you here and welcome to Lyfts.

1:51Thank you very much for having me and for the introduction. Absolutely. Look, before we dive in, I'm a bit of a history geek, and I love data as everyone knows here, but I want to pull the camera back a little bit. So we spend a lot of time, at least I do, talking about technology, AI, connected fitness and wearables. But the truth is, the original connected fitness was actually a group class where people move together and sweat together, and that really hasn't changed. So in preparation for this episode, I kind of went back and did a bit of history in terms of where did this start from? So I wanted to rewind the tape on group fitness, and it goes back further than most people realize.

2:28So in the 1930s, Jack LaLanne was already hosting group workouts and literally one of the first versions of group exercise. Then in 1969, Judy Shepard launched Jazzercise, which, Will, I'm sure you know about very well, and arguably one of the first versions, one of the first commercialized group fitness formats. and that is still around and thriving today. Then in the 1980s, brought the aerobics boom, VHS, workout tapes, the Jane Fonda effect, and group fitness became part of pop culture. By the 1990s, Les Mills globalized workouts like body combat, body pump, and classes that delivered consistency around the world.

3:15The 2000s and the 2010s sparked the boutique era. So you and Orange Theory, where community became the anchor and the product of Boutique Fitness. Then in 2020, digital didn't just rise. It literally exploded, pulled forward by the pandemic. Suddenly, every instructor was a content creator. Every living room became a studio. So today, we're entering what I've been calling for the last couple of years, the fifth era, which is hybrid community, physical and digital content, event plus in club and at home. All of these different pieces come together. And group fitness now is not really defined by location, it's defined by connection.

3:58And Will, first question to you. You've been through so much of what I just talked about. You've probably known a lot of people I just talked about. What were the biggest inflection points you've experienced firsthand? Oh, that's a really good question. I think that you can't go past the pandemic in terms of changing the way that the fitness industry has operated and in particular group fitness. A lot of things were changing in the 2010s. I think in the early 2000s, Les Mills was really dominant and you also had Zumba that grew up around the 2010 point as well. They became household names. Fitness classes became something that people were aware of.

4:38Zumba really brought it into the mainstream. Then Boutique came in the 20 teens, SoulCycle, Barry's Bootcamp became household names that people would know about if they had anything to do with fitness. And then everything changed when the pandemic hit and everybody was shut inside. And when connective fitness like Peloton and then Beachbody also changed to body, switched to digital. And so I think the big shift there was that people didn't know what the future was going to be because everybody started exercising at home even though they had been exercising at home forever like i remember my first ever group fitness class was taibo on video yeah in the 90s but yeah exactly i think there was a big question as to whether group fitness would come back and i think the question has been answered and the answer is that it has um and attendance is an hour where they were pre-covid and growing um i think you make an interesting point that the way the hybridization has occurred is more around community and less around distribution, in my opinion, but be keen to talk about that maybe.

5:39Matthew Januszek:I just wanted to add in a couple of other names I thought are quite relevant. I went to Beyond Active a few months ago, and we actually went to see the Cooper Institute. So Dr. Kenneth Cooper apparently in 1968 publishes aerobics. So this this was his i'm not sure whether he was the first person to was was he was that was that correct was it that's what people call him the father of aerobics yeah yeah he was inducted into the hfa hall of fame uh this year it was it was cool yeah so i think i think he i think he certainly that was a huge influence and things are still going strong today um in in his amazing facility the other one that i thought was worth mentioning is is jane fonder like how could you forget Jane Fonda in the 80s certainly that I think influenced a number of things including fashion and if you think back to the beginning of the fitness industry as we know it with gyms and then there's two things that certainly sort of stay strong in my mind is you've got strength training which is originates from the Arnold Schwarzenegger and the bodybuilders and the movies and then you've got people like Jane Fonda with which I guess was probably the the female type of fitness at the time with aerobics.

6:57Matthew Januszek:And then there's another name, which I think is really important to mention that I was involved with when we started our company with Reebok and that's Jim Miller, who I guess was really fundamental in developing the STEP and so much of the early STEP programs at the time. So with so much history and so many people that are really, I guess, kind of were very influential in this movement many years ago and I think it's still alive today when you go to many of these conventions I was just wondering the the demographic in what we would imagine is the traditional group exercise so you've got your what you call your your group group exercise studio I know whenever I travel you go to many clubs and and you've got this hardcore of people that use the group exercise studio they love the instructors the classes are packed they follow these people around wherever they go but it but it does seem as though it's it's a little bit older and so will the question to you is is how are you seed or how have you seen group exercise evolve through the generations i know mo gave some examples about how maybe some of those people are now going to boutique studios for that type of experience but do you still see this alive as much as it as it used to be in gyms and in some ways where many of these big box many of these sort of low-cost big boxes have moved the the group x room out are you seeing people bringing that back in again based on some renewed popularity yeah it's an interesting conversation I would say that, like, personally, we work with Pure Gym, who are, they actually call themselves a low-cost operator here in the UK.

8:44They have sort of 450 sites. They operate an unlimited class model. So, Group Fitness is very central to their model. Although, what they are doing is, in certain sites, they're testing what they call, like, blank canvas zones, I think. So, studios that can operate both as a studio but also as a functional zone. So, at times when classes are running, it operates as a studio. it's sort of semi-enclosed but at other times other people can come in and use it which I think is really important because the group fitness space isn't just a place that's used for classes it's also used for people using their own app doing their own workout which I think is something that's massively changed since the pandemic so what I would say is that group fitness is still centrally important but I think potentially there are a few less classes on the timetable and a few different mixed usages of the same space as there were previously and for engagement you still can't really beat it.

9:36You're getting people together, you're creating that effect. But it's definitely changed. And I think, particularly thinking about how you resource space on the gym, there's a lot of considerations. One thing we know is that the data has been consistent across nearly every operator. And this is primarily in the US and the UK, that people in group fitness have dramatically better retention than two people to exercise solo, especially for new people joining the gym. And depending on the chain, and I'm not sure with the data on Pure, you probably know this, but some chains report almost two to three X higher retention for members to take at least one class per week.

10:10And that's some accidents. So I think when we looked at our recent surveys, this is looking at some ABC data, group fitness taps into the ability to feel like you belong somewhere with like-minded people, identity, accountability, of course, the social kind of side of it. The one I like is the shared struggle when I'm hurting and I'm struggling. I just look at the person next to me and they're with me, right? So we're doing it together. That makes a big difference. What we're seeing here is the shift. So this article says that Gen Z views fitness as identity and mental health combined, not as a workout, but a way to connect.

10:48And the Times reported that gyms now beat pubs as Gen Z's preferred night out, which is interesting, Matthew, given our last episode. And that one, I think just blew my mind. So just think about that for a moment. So like in New York and even in DC, some of these social clubs with like spas and so on, it's like other shit and all, our people are really using this as a night out and looks like it's happening in the UK as well. So like a night out is shifting from movement or working out and not alcohol. And then the gym groups data also show that Gen Z spends more on fitness than on fashion, on electronics.

11:25And a lot of people viewed the gym as a place for connection. So Will, I guess the question to you is, why do you think that group fitness continues to be one of the most powerful retention tools in the industry? And then also, because the second part of it is, do operators really understand the value that group fitness brings? I don't exactly remember what the data is, but I think one of the important things to remember is that retention, especially retention in the early stage of a membership, is greatly increased by meaningful interaction. and so if a person is spoken to on the gym floor it doesn't need to be by group fitness instructor or a PT but if if they have a meaningful interaction and they're spoken to and they interact with somebody they're more likely to stay a member I think their chance of being a member the following month doubles and so what group fitness does is it just puts on to hyperspeed the meaningful connections that they can have they have a connection with the instructor hopefully the instructor is asking them how they are seeing if they need any modifications talking to them and motivating them, but then they also have meaningful interactions with the other people in the class.

12:28And so if you know that a meaningful interaction is more likely to make somebody be retained as a member, a group fitness class is just a way of guaranteeing that there will be more of them.

12:37Matthew Januszek:What do you see the place of technology in group exercise? You've been involved in a number of different brands, Will, where they've had quite a focus on digital streaming, rooms where they have an amazing experience with music and trainers to motivate people within those types of facilities, particularly what it seems to be targeted at low cost gyms or maybe apartment communities or people where they've got these rooms that are not particularly well used. But then if you look at some of the information that Mo shared and numerous links that are online, It seems the reason that people go to a group exercise is predominantly to meet people, to have that sense of community, to share an experience together, to engage with a very motivational, inspirational trainer that's going to take them on a journey.

13:36Matthew Januszek:And many of the gyms that I've been to, there's one even I used to go to quite regularly in London, the Harbour Club. And there was a guy that's just there for years. And you have the people on the front row that just absolutely love the trainer and have almost like never missed a class in years. Where do you see digital in this experience? Or do you think really that maybe as an industry we're misunderstanding the reason that people are going to group exercise? And this is probably one of the places where there's less reliance on technology compared to maybe some of the other parts of the exercise experience.

14:15I think there was a time when studio use thought that it could be solved by putting a big screen in and all of the off-peak slots where you wanted to utilize the studio space but not necessarily pay an instructor or incur those costs. Having a big screen and putting digital content was a good way of using that studio and shoulder slots. I think that's not really widely thought of anymore for the reasons that you talked about, Matthew. also because I think in the pandemic, we shifted away from, if we were consuming digital fitness content, there used to be companies like Cyberobics that were spending huge amounts on the production that they were putting in, working at gyms like McFit.

14:58Most people now, if they're consuming digital fitness content, they do it on their phone and they don't want to go to it at a scheduled time on a timetable. So the limitation with like a virtual program is that you have to turn up at 10 a.m. and you need to be there at 10 a.m. to do the class you want to do. But the reality is people choose digital fitness experiences because they want convenience. And when they can have that convenience on a digital device in a shared space, I look at BasicFit during the pandemic. I was a member. They had big screens where they had group fitness classes running on the hour.

15:29And towards the end of the pandemic, they'd taken a lot of the, I was in Paris at the time, they'd taken a lot of the studios and reverse engineered them so that the big screen just showed a QR code. The QR code took you through to the BasicFit app, and then the person could choose their own workout and i remember that the studio would have nobody following the following the virtual class but it would have seven or eight people doing their own workout and i could see that they're all using the basic fit content but using it personally on their device because you don't want to have to turn up at a specific time like if you want a digital solution you want it to be convenient and i think that that's where digital is going it's a convenience tool but the thing that But so people are, so a live class is a premium experience because you're getting to do it with people and you make an appointment for it.

16:14And then digital is more used when you know you need to get a workout in, but you want to have the convenience value of being able to do it where you want and when you want.

16:22Matthew Januszek:There are some successful boutique studios. There's a couple that I'm involved with in New York at the moment that have almost got a combination of both, which I think is quite a nice experience. experience because what they're doing is that they're providing some additional support that can't be provided by the instructor just things like timings and showing exercises and that kind of thing what are you seeing when it comes to this hybrid of bringing in some technology whether that's through cool lighting experiences and lasers and things like that to almost like enhance what you're getting from from the instructor have you seen anything that's interesting out there that maybe we're not aware of?

17:03Well, actually, I went to FS8 today, which is the F45 Pilates, and they operate it very similar to an F45 class where the videos on the screen show you what is happening. And you follow along with that, but it is also instructed. So Pilates is quite complicated. And also, if you're following what the instructor is doing, it's quite difficult to see. So technology is being used to make it easier to immediately start doing the exercise. So you know you're doing you understand where the foot placement is but it doesn't take away from the fact that an instructor is there and i know that um uh pilates with a three with tribute brands operating in europe they have a really really nice um digital experience um that they've curated i think that technology is being used to bridge the gap because i would i would i would say that the average group fitness instructor is not as expert in group fitness instructing now as they were 20 years ago.

18:00And I think that the industry is struggling to bring talent in to the level at which they're used to. And so they're using technology as a way to leverage potentially more inexperienced people or allow people to teach more classes because there's not quite so much required of them in each individual class. That's interesting. Look, there's a lot there to unpack. So let me start with this. You mentioned that instructors are harder to come by. That was even accelerated by the pandemic because during the pandemic, gyms just couldn't afford to keep instructors and even personal trainers and other staff on the payroll.

18:32So they went to look for other things. And I think they're still working to kind of fill that bucket, if you will, on getting quality instructors to come on. You went from a time when I knew SoulCycle almost had you all living together in group classes as you were training together. And it was almost like a boot camp in many ways to now. You almost want to build programming where it's relatively easy to source instructors. and instructors might have a full-time job that's not even in fitness. And then they may be an instructor at a couple of studios, not just one. How do you coach operators or even instructors to manage that?

19:08I'm sure a lot of what you've done at Shift was to simplify a lot of that very immersive requirement from like 10 years ago. There's two verticals of instruction historically the way I see it. There's working in a big gym or there is working in a boutique. And I think that the skills and expectations were quite different and then they kind of crossed over and now they're somewhat in between because you've seen a lot of gyms put boutiques into their gyms and expect that same level of instruction i think one of the problems within with uh instruction in gym chains is that pay has stagnated since the early 2000s um it just hasn't gone up i think i i would say that that's probably because the existence of license formats means that some of the budget has gone towards the licensing, then there's probably perception that instructors aren't doing as much as they were doing previously when they were freestyling and having to create it all.

20:02For example, if the gym has provided you with a licensed format and you're not creating it yourself, therefore there's no need to pay you the premium that a freestyle instructor might have been paid. But for whatever the reason, instructor pay hasn't increased and therefore it's not really a viable full-time career except in boutique where the pay is higher and they have managed to make it into more of a career but i think that ultimately you talk about people having other jobs i'm from new zealand and most people that teach fitness classes in new zealand do other things they might be a pt or they might work in the fitness industry but very often they work outside the fitness industry but i think of like my best mentors growing up when i was teaching at les mills they were like architects and people that work completely outside of the fitness industry and taught as a passion because they wanted to be there it was the thing they wanted to do at the end of the day um i think it's a it's a little bit sad for instructors often because the passion that they have for teaching classes is sometimes leveraged into paying them less because someone's happy to do it for free so i think it's just an ultimate challenge the way we've tried to solve shift is by making it as cheap as possible for the instructor to deliver classes and as easy as possible so we do everything through an app the instructor doesn't have to memorize anything which is obviously the way that it used to be sort of historically also i think the average gym user they're not looking for choreography they're looking for a workout boutique kind of pushed us in that direction they tended to be less focused on dance fitness and more focused on strength or or other modalities so i think there's lots of things for instructors to do but So I think they need to, gyms and instructors need to accept that pay hasn't changed for 20 years.

21:46It's probably not going to change. We should think about how to make instructors' lives better outside of that element that doesn't seem to be able to be moved. On page, you can give a quick response to what should instructor pay be for a boutique class? I know that's a completely loaded question, but if you can just provide a range from your perspective. For which type of class? or a boutique fitness class or even a group x class interestingly emd uk which is the governing body for exercise to music in the uk just put out a briefing paper they suggest that someone with skills and qualifications should be on 40 to 50 pounds per class for someone that's been in the industry for a long time and brings with them certain certifications i don't know if i necessarily agree with that because i don't think the person's certifications are the relevant thing i think as an operator you want someone that's going to bring people in and keep them there it doesn't really matter if they have level four pilates they could have level two pilates and just be extremely good at pilates and create great vibes um but i think like if i think if instructors could be paid i i feel the exchange rate changes all the time like 40 to 50 pounds what's that 60 to 70 dollars now click arithmetic I know that that's really far off what average pay is.

23:05I think average pay is down at around 25 to 30 for an hour long class. So that's a big delta. So I wouldn't be so bold as to suggest that that can be solved. But it kind of shows where an industry body thinks the appropriate level would be given the level of work that's done, the expertise that's required, the certifications that have been attained.

23:26Matthew Januszek:This is probably a difficult question for you to answer because you've built a business, so you're attached to solving a particular problem. And I was just curious to know that if the problem that you've solved is based on where the industry is today, or as someone that's really had a huge background in group exercise and traveling around the world and teaching, whether it's how you see the aspirational view of a group exercise instructor, because clearly I think there's two things that I see going on. You've got a lot of these traditional gyms where their whole model is geared around getting people in the door at a particularly low price point and then providing some nice added value.

24:08And so my guess is a lot of what your organization has provided

24:13Matthew Januszek:is to allow that to happen and provide consistency and a great standard and a great experience. On the other side, we're seeing some huge shifts in the space that we're all involved in the health and wellness space and you're seeing a lot more younger people that are coming in mo gave an example earlier about the articles where people are spending more time in in in gyms and fitness facilities than they were going out to nightclubs and bars which is which was a probably a my guess a huge investment in in getting you know paying paying to get into to the to the door of a nightclub and then having drinks and food and all that kind of stuff so in your i suppose from from two perspectives one is have you solved this problem based on that's where the industry is at the moment and then two probably more from an aspirational perspective but do you see a world where there's an opportunity to build on what the boutiques have created and and going back to probably the early days of you know the 80s and the 90s where these group exercise people and I know it's still the case in in in New Zealand where Les Mills are from where you could literally have big rooms of people that are following their favorite instructor and and this becomes almost like a mini concert environment where people are really prepared to pay to to be involved in an experience like that so I am a pragmatist and also being from New Zealand I went from teaching classes with 250 people everybody was fit engaged uh main stage of lesmales auckland then i moved to london in 2007 and i was teaching the biggest class of the week which was 23 people so my my conception of what group fitness was changed a lot so to answer your question i'm actually pretty pragmatic i think that in in the reality of classes today if we want to get young people into teaching we need to make it easier for them which is why we give them everything on an app we don't make them memorize everything we have dropped the level of certification required they have to do a short video they can upload it through their phone it used to be the case that you'd you know need to film a full class and have that recorded um gyms today it's important to them that the class is taught on the timetable that is not cancelled that's really important for members but i think i've said this to mo before a competently class competently taught class that is definitely taught on the schedule and isn't cancelled is just better than a fantastic class where with a with a great presenter that may be traveling and coming back and forth and not able to commit to that in my experience and I say this as someone who has taught group fitness internationally for 20 years it's not really about the content it's more about the connection and whether or not that person is going to be present and engaged with the people in their class so I think the challenge of today is just accepting that we want people to be there and teaching and making it easier for them.

27:07There was another part of your question, Matthew, which I wanted to answer, but I think I forgot. I just want to, again, I can talk about this topic. So many questions for you, Will. How do you think about progression? And I want to come back to technology, which Matthew brought up a few minutes ago as well later. But when you think about fitness, so much of retention is someone joins, let's just say in January, most people, most of those new joiners leave after six weeks. And the biggest reason is because they just see no progress or because they just get on the treadmill, they feel sore, they don't know what they're doing.

27:43And there's like, this doesn't even work. And in a lot of cases, when you first join a gym and you first start on a health journey, you actually gain weight because your body's responding and you've got inflammation and your body's responding to things, right? And you actually, a lot of people gain weight the first few weeks of a fitness program before they actually lose weight. And one of the issues that I've had with group fitness, and I've seen brands, like I was just in the Gold Coast of Australia, one of the brands we work with recently is called Revel Training. And the way they work is they do an assessment.

28:15It's in three-month blocks. Then they do a reassessment. So you're able to track progression and see yourself improve. And everything is thoughtful. Various Bootcamp has a split. So if you do very quick, you know what is legs day or arms day or back day or whatever. But traditionally in group fitness, the idea of, it's been more about let's do a hard thing together. But when you look out the group in this class, there's little progress that you see, right? Typically. What are your thoughts on progression and how do you think boutique fitness can solve for it? It's an interesting question. I remember when I first started teaching and I was in my like I started teaching I was 19 so in my early 20s seeing people who I viewed as a little bit unfit and like but at the class every week and they were members of my class that would be in the front row every week and when I was young and I was fit and everything was easy to me I had this perception of well why are they coming if they're not getting any thinner and as I got older and realized their reasons for being there weren't necessarily progression So I think we need to think about group fitness as achieving two different things.

29:25One can be just belonging and moving. And that's why Zumba is amazing. Like when Zumba first came along, I was like, this isn't really a workout. It's just kind of dancing. Then I saw a friend of mine's grandmother doing Zumba at 24 hour fitness, sort of the 75 year old lady who'd never been involved in fitness before going with her friends. So I think we don't have to solve for everything. I think that apps and boutique studios that offer progression and Barry's Bootcamp doing Hell Week serves a certain type of customer. And then other types of group fitness serve a different type of customer.

29:57I think it's like a massively huge, it's such a big category that I think it can serve different constituents.

30:04Matthew Januszek:Do you think that this is not just about getting fit and working out? Because some of the events that I've been to, they're just fun. it's just like look don't worry about like I've never heard the word retention mentioned when I was in the nightclub industry like I'm sure it was in some ways but it was it was not about that it was just like you would you just come back because you enjoyed it uh you'd meet your friends you'd have a great time you get on the dance floor um and you go away happy and you'd meet and and you'd have this environment so I just wonder if if the as the industry matures that that there's different parts to it there's the people that need a corrective exercise specialist and that's their journey.

30:45Matthew Januszek:There's the people that want to build muscle for an event. That's another journey. But there's the people that, for them, it's like getting on the dance floor, doing Zumba or whatever, listening to some music and just hanging out with your friends. Like maybe that's a goal. This actually, this is the question that I wanted to answer before and then I forgot because I got on my own train of thought. So you asked the question about, are we going to see huge group fitness classes like we used to see in the 80s and 90s? I think that again, it's kind of the industry is bisected and you have big fitness events where people come together so a les mills live or a high rocks kind of fulfills the same purpose but obviously it's not group fitness although pyrox is moving into group fitness quite quite big um but i think that group fitness now is probably at a lower more consistent level and the group fitness events and the live events are taking the place of what was that huge class on a monday night or a thursday night.