In most cases, individuals who frequently worked out, and were part of the “workout culture,” were hired to assist with proper equipment usage and its maintenance. Not long after, it became apparent that attrition rates were problematic. The term “member retention” was used when speaking about countering the universal dropout phenomenon that plagued even first-rate facilities.

Since new member sales generally canceled out the “sting” of attrition, retention was viewed as a problem but was tolerated. New emphasis began to be placed on member service in the hopes of affecting the dropout problem; but these efforts made little impact. Staff responsibilities started to include better physiological evaluations and, often, more thorough counseling about equipment choices and usage. Certification became the norm for trainers.

More recently, the industry began to acknowledge that more than a friendly and experienced staff is needed to positively change dismal retention rates. Forward-thinking fitness centers are beginning to hire and look to their exercise leaders for adherence skills, as well as their physiological knowledge. In some cases, “retention specialists” have been named, and exercise professionals are evaluated on their ability to retain a portion of a facility’ s clientele specifically assigned to them. Generally, it is still assumed though, that frequent, cordial contacts and/or phone follow-ups will enable a new client to feel enough “at home” at the facility to continue exercising there.

That was a concise to-date review. Efforts were well-meaning but, unfortunately, did not make much of an impact when hard retention numbers were considered. Today, we realize that simply keeping in contact with members and providing them with a friendly, well-appointed facility is not enough to keep those who find exercise unappealing coming back. We must provide those “at risk” for dropout with the tools required to succeed. We need to counter their lack of motivation, time-constraints, frustration with slow progress and discomfort with the exercise process.

What is ironic is that while this evolution of the industry was taking place, many answers to the exercise adherence/retention problems were already available.

An important subdiscipline of an academic area called “exercise psychology” was compiling research on exercise’s effect on mood, anxiety and depression, its effect on disease and the immune system, and exercise adherence for some time.

Within research reports laden with statistical analysis and technical jargon was a science in the making. Behavioral scientists were actively publishing research that tested theories of exercise behavior and adherence promotion methods. Many of the answers to the retention problem were emerging but, given the nature of the academic world, information was kept inaccessible to those in need: the fitness center administrators and professionals that impact the lives of many new exercisers every day.

I feel a bit lazy for not making it to the gym, but this weekend I went camping and was almost constantly involved in physical exercise. I walked the ranch, hunted, fished, rode horses and played whiffle ball. I only sat down to eat or talk beside the campfire. It was a rigorous weekend, but the food, beer and other calorie sources may have been a little excessive. Actually there is no “may have been” about it.

However, I do not look down upon myself for my neglect or excess. I plan to put in my time at the gym and make healthier choices this week.

Bruce

Sharon’s Reply
Hi Bruce,

You managed to keep food records while working till 2 a.m. You even lost another pound, in spite of the Soft Batch cookies. What a tough temptation at work when you are feeling hungry and stressed and want to be nice to yourself. Are the cookies readily accessible? Can they be made less visible? They may prove to be a constant temptation to all.

You have been choosing good sandwiches with less fat. Also, try to reduce portion size. Consider leaving some food on the plate as you fill up. Work to get more fruit instead of cookies in your diet. Your fat gram average was 37, if all was recorded.

I am glad you are still motivated and committed. You don’t have to eat perfectly to lose weight.

Sharon
Armand’s Reply

Bruce,

I like how you use the rowing for your cardiovascular workouts. Rowing is an overall body workout that is not only great for your cardiovascular system and to burn calories, but also can strengthen and tone the upper body muscles. To row for 30 minutes continuously is quite impressive. How do you feel at the end of your rowing?

As far as weight training for your upper body, what weights and reps are you doing? Are you maintaining strict form on all of the movements? Remember, quality is more important than quantity, both for effectiveness and safety.

The camping sounds like it was both active and fun. That’s the best type of recreation! For this week, I would like for you to get in at least four cardiovascular and three weight-training sessions, followed by the stretches.

Get to the gym, Bruce. You can do it. Good luck!

Armand

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*Getting 65 percent of new members to complete a fitness assessment and program construction within their first 30 days.

*Running a fitness incentive program every other month, with a minimum of 100 paid participants.

*Conducting systematic preventive maintenance on equipment each week.

*Exceeding the department’s bottom line for the year.

*Developing a year-round internship program for three slots with one or more local universities.

These five factors encompass a variety of aspects of the job function: member integration, programming, equipment maintenance, budgeting and variance analyses, and staffing.

For each department, plus the general manager, key success factors should be created, monitored monthly, and serve as measurements for incentives. The combination of these incentives (often paid quarterly) can lead to a total of 20 to 25 percent of salary. Generally, the club can afford this additional compensation, because incremental benefits have been created.

But is there any benefit to the backward motion? A study found that when users went backward, they actually burned 7 percent more calories than when going forward.3 However, a study at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse laboratory failed to substantiate this claim, and found that at identical speeds and resistance levels, exercising forward and backward on the Precor Transport resulted in the same intensity workout.2 Thus, it appears that the jury is still out on the backward issue from an energy-cost point of view, but going backward can provide variety to a workout, and future studies using electromyographs (EMG) may shed light on the muscle usage question.

The bottom line

Since a larger number of people are reaching an older age, more and more exercisers are seeking low-impact exercise alternatives. It has long been recognized that one of the major benefits of walking is that it is a low-impact activity, which results in relatively few orthopedic injuries to the lower extremities.

A major drawback for more fit individuals, however, is that there is an upper limit to the workout intensity of walking. Elliptical trainers may be able to fill this void, as they can provide exercise over a wide range of exercise intensities, while minimizing the potential for lower extremity injuries. FM

So you’ve got a new high-end PC that features all the latest and coolest multimedia features, and a fast connection to the Internet. Speakers sit on either side of your monitor, and are most often silent.

Why not spice up your working life with a little bit of music, especially now that you have a PC with enough power to provide you with some fascinating capabilities?

An Internet-linked PC becomes a marvelous music machine for the office — as long as you don’t play things so loudly it upsets your workplace neighbours. You can quickly find innovative software
programs that will let you tune into all kinds of on-line radio stations.

One of the most popular audio programs, preinstalled on many PCs, is RealPlayer from RealNetworks (http://www.real.com). A tour through the Web site will lead you into a massive world of on-line
broadcast, involving access to countless radio stations as well as customized music lists.

There are alternatives. Visit the Spinner site (http://www.spinner.com)and you can download its SpinnerPlus software. This will let you tune into more than 120 “stations,” with enough musical genres available to satisfy any taste.

With Spinner, you’re not simply tuning in existing public broadcasters as you might with RealNetworks. You’re listening to specialized stations put on-line by the Spinner folks, so you often have a far more
eclectic list of music to choose from.

There are many other similar services — sites such as NetRadio (http://www.netradio.com),RadioMoi (http://www.radiomoi.com), and RadioSpy (http://www.radiospy.com),each of which will let you find all
kinds of stations.

If you want to tune into the ultimate in user-driven radio on-line, grab a copy of WinAmp (http://www.winamp.com), and then visit Shoutcast (http://www.shoutcast.com). This service enables people to establish their own radio stations.

Listening to music can be lots of fun at work, but there are plenty of video sites that you can visit, too. In addition to RealNetworks, Scour (http://www.scour.net) and Broadcast.com (http://www.broadcast.com) provide methods by which you can search for video clips.

Keep your ear to the ground on some of the more innovative on-line projects. For example, Troops (http://www.theforce.net/troops) is a hilarious video that parodies Star Wars to the COPS TV show
theme.

Exploring this world, you can turn your new-fangled PC into a great machine to access audio and video on the Internet. Not only will you have some workplace entertainment, but you’ll discovered some of
the ways in which the Internet is evolving.

But keep this in mind: You may not want to be doing a lot of this while you’re working. And if your organization doesn’t have a fast connection to the Net, you may cause extreme stress to the folks in
the information technology deparment, who could react with horror to the idea that staff members are wasting precious bandwidth.

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Designed to encourage group fun and goal achievement, the SDCG involved approximately 500 members who were “grooped” into 35 teams headed by a motivational staff member. For one month, individuals on the team recorded their own workouts, with team captains converting the workouts into points. Participants could receive points for any exercise — from aerobics classes to weight training to horseback riding — and all exercises were assigned an equal point value. Results were tallied weekly and posted in the main lobby. Midway into the program, the club hosted a “Blooper Day” in which each participant was invited to roll two large dice and perform a “silly” act determined by their roll. For instance, rolling “dance” and “wear” may mean dancing like a ballerina in a monkey suit. More than 130 people earned bonus points by participating in this portion of the program.

According to Assistant Fitness Director Sarah Stieve, the SDCG exceeded its goal of 300 participants, “grooping” close to 500 members, which is a 150 percent increase over the previous year. Each team’s total points were averaged by the number of team members, encouraging every person to do their part.

“Those individuals who worked best as a team actually accomplished the most and won the competition,” says Stieve. “However, to keep the program positive and fun, rewards were given to everyone, not just the team with the most points.”

A $2,000 sponsorship from a local company covered the cost of the program, including the incentive prize.

Suddenly, David S. Wetherell’s name was on everybody’s lips. Over a three-year period, the easygoing guy amassed a multimillion-dollar conglomerate under an umbrella corporation named CMG Information Services, then CMGI. Early investments in Lycos, GeoCities, and more than 20 other Internet companies – as well as incubation or outright purchase of startups such as ZineZone – delivered to Wetherell a collection of Net eyeballs that ranked right up with Microsoft’s and AOL’s.

CMGI went public in 1994 with a $23.2 million market cap, and now boasts an $8.6 billion market cap. So who is this guy?

Wetherell didn’t set out to build an empire. He was born on a Connecticut chicken farm and at age 5 moved to Clearwater, Fla., where his father was a general contractor. He studied mathematics and education at Ohio Wesleyan University, expecting to become a high school math teacher. In his senior year, he began a love affair with computer programming and his career took a sharp detour. He worked as a code writer, then a headhunter, and in 1982 founded Softrend, which developed integrated desktop software, pre-Microsoft. Wetherell sold it in 1984 for $4 million and launched a string of startups that led him to form @Ventures to buy stakes in early-stage Net firms.

What investments excite Wetherell? “We look for a hard problem being solved … We look for a first-mover advantage, applications which leverage Metcalfe’s Law [that a network squares computing power], good management, and companies that are complementary to other investments,” he says.

Among more than three dozen investments, only one has tanked: free email upstart Freemark Communications. Wetherell says he honed his ability to pick winners while developing software and running CMG. “I learned a lot about direct marketing. The Internet is the perfect channel for direct marketing,” he says. “And I was watching for an emerging standard for electronic publishing since 1984 … I never found anything until the Web came along.”

“I think of him as an industry seer,” says Ullas Naik, an analyst with FAC Equities/First Albany, who expects six or seven CMGI-backed companies to go public within the next year or so. “He has demonstrated an uncanny ability to spot emerging trends in the Internet and e-commerce sector.” Naik says Wetherell invests in four basic areas: content (Lycos), community (GeoCities), commerce (Chemdex), and infrastructure (NaviSite). As Jeffrey Cunningham, CEO of PlanetDirect, puts it, “He can see clearly through the mist.”

Wetherell’s profile rose in February when USA Networks’ Barry Diller announced plans to merge with Lycos. CMGI controls 18.5 percent of Lycos stock, a $688 million stake that makes it the company’s largest shareholder. Following the announcement, Lycos shares dropped nearly 35 percent. Wetherell quit the Lycos board. Lycos shareholders have yet to vote on the proposed bid.

Wetherell is convinced the Internet will prove more important than the Industrial Revolution. “The pace of change is far greater, and it’s far more wealth for far more people,” he says. Has he thought about how to do good with his own wealth? “I have a definite plan,” says Wetherell, who has been married for 21 years and has three children, “but I’m not prepared to discuss it.” He adds that within a year he will begin his next major investment – in humanity.

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LifeQuest came up with a plan that would require a commitment from both the club and the participating businesses. Businesses begin by signing a wellness pledge, promising to promote health and wellness in the workplace. As part of the program, LifeQuest provides program materials including wellness identification cards, brochures, a certification plaque and an expiration date for the program. Employees have one introductory month to familiarize themselves with the program and the club. During this month, LifeQuest works closely with employees, ensuring they are well informed and motivated about their program. After one month, employees have the option to buy a membership at a 45 percent discount.

The program resulted in a number of successes. For employees, it provided a comfortable way to get involved in a wellness program that they would not have done otherwise. “The program is easy to understand and comfortable to use,” says fitness counselor Ian Odom.

“Most people would not get involved if there were inconvenient meetings or other complicated factors that normally accompany group ‘sign-ups,’” he says.

LifeQuest benefits from the program by having made contact with the business community market. The club increased its membership base, distributing 3,000 packages to its target market and signing up 40 percent of all Business Partnership Program participants as members. Now, the doors are open for continued contact and marketing to a whole new market segment.

“Yes, Ted’s excuse sounded pretty lame, but I remain unconvinced that he had a conscious intention, knowing that he was on a national TV show and has a wife and newborn back home, to actually “get something going” with Ghandia.

“Whatever he DID do, whether or not there was biting, nibbling, poking, sneezing, Bible- thumping, Probsting, or any combination thereof, his apology, from where I was sitting certainly seemed sincere and heartfelt, and however disingenuous Ghandia thought his excuse was, it doesn’t BEGIN to approach the disingenuousness of Ghandia hugging him and remarking “You’re a good man, Ted,” only to turn around and berate him to the rest of the tribe, to say nothing of conveniently forgetting to mention his apology.”

After watching this initial exchange between Ghandia and Ted (especially after watching it many times as I transcribed), I got the feeling that it was truly over; that Ghandia accepted Ted’s apology, that Ted was truly sincere, and that Ted would go out of his way to avoid anything like this even coming close to happening in the future.

Ted remarked to the cameras about how the tribe was like a family and, even though this incident exists within the family, that they can move beyond this and pull together as a team for the next challenge.

The mood was quickly changed as we saw Team Church Social stretching and doing calisthenics, getting psyched up for the challenge. I found it humorous, knowing that in the previews we saw Robb towering over the screaming Clay as he grabs him by the neck, to hear Clay say, “We’ve got some ass-kickin’ to do, fellas!”

Acknowledging that lunging is becoming one of the most popular forms of lower-body toning and development, LifeQuest set out to manufacture George Snyder’s unique lunging poles that help the user balance and add resistance to the exercises. The final product has two poles attached to a four-legged base that sits about 6 inches off the ground. The poles rotate 360 degrees and can move in a 180-degree arc north of the base, Caparas explains. “The user holds each pole at the handle ends and performs a variety of lunging, squatting and flexibility exercises with full confidence and freedom of movement,” he says.

The poles address a desire to add a muscle-building element to aerobics classes, while also being safe and easy to use. The enthusiastic response from LifeQuest members and instructors has bolstered the inventors’ belief in the value of using Lunging Poles in all aerobics classes.

“The invention is currently an incredible source of organizational pride and esteem,” Caparas says. The innovative folks at LifeQuest plan to introduce the lightweight, aluminum poles to other aerobic dancers through trained instructors and worldwide distribution.