Good resolutions already forgotten? The month of October has only just begun and it is starting to be difficult for some people to continue their weight training session. The beginning of autumn sometimes (often?) means canceling the subscription. “There is still a fairly significant renewal, with almost one customer in two who does not stay from one year to the next depending on the rooms, so we must seek to retain them,” explains sociologist and economist Guillaume Vallet, author of La Fabrique du Muscle, published by L'Echappée.
For gym managers, customer loyalty is the crux of the matter. In addition to traditional bodybuilding machines, we must therefore offer new products. “In this desire to diversify the offer and maintain this clientele, you have had a rather recent evolution of the rooms towards a plurality of services for some of them”, continues the sociologist who has been practicing bodybuilding for decades.
These rooms can notably draw on the enthusiasm recently created by the Hyrox. This competition, created in Germany in 2017, has enjoyed dazzling success. It is an 8 km running race divided into eight loops interspersed with fitness tests called stations. The athletes therefore do skierg, sled push and pull, burpees with long jump, rowing, walking with weights, weighted lunges and wall balls. Each station is preceded by a one kilometer run. The format is always the same, regardless of the city where the event takes place, and takes place inside a building.
This simple model is easily exported all over the world, bringing together more and more participants. A search for “surpassing oneself” that we find in other competitions that have appeared recently, such as the ATHX, the Deka Fit or the Deadly Dozen. Like Hyrox, these sports offer practitioners the opportunity to get out of the weight rooms and apply their skills in line with the term of the moment: “the hybrid athlete”.
“When a practice becomes more widespread, like bodybuilding over the last ten years, there are always people who seek to finally break this routine a little and to invent, in a certain way, new practices.”
The gyms therefore offer more and more training areas within their establishments which differ from those bringing together bodybuilding or cardio machines. “The first novelty is the development of what we call hybrid training zones,” explains Fabien Rouget, spokesperson for Basic Fit. “In these spaces, we can work on a much wider range of equipment such as skiergs, sandbags or small weights to bring these zones, which are used more and more, to life.”
These areas which are not really new, but are experiencing particular growth in recent months in sports halls. “At home, we called them Cross Training zones, since it was the CrossFit trend that dominated, remembers Florent Williamson, concept manager for France International Fitness Park. The goal was to democratize this practice and so that our customers could also have access to a place to do 'muscle ups', pull-ups, snatches, etc.."
According to Florent Williamson, Fitness Park has been associated with Hyrox since their first events in France: "When we saw these races which were starting to take place in Germany, we felt that it corresponded to our DNA. We surpass ourselves, we compete and we test our fitness during the events. We took the gamble but we didn't think it would be so powerful." Today, the group “has affiliated 180 theaters on its French network out of 320”.
At Basic Fit, “there is an increasing demand”, notes Fabien Rouget, “many of our current members do these races”. “There is a real certainty,” he continues, “people remain members of clubs when they achieve their goals and are helped to achieve them. Today, our goal is to still provide this support.” Ultimately, “the 900 clubs will be equipped with the new hybrid training concept,” he explains.
“Our goal is to become the benchmark for training preparation for all athletes. We are therefore today enormously developing these zones, which we call 'hybrid training', at Basic Fit."
At Fitness Park, this allowed the group to broaden its clientele in terms of age. “Our core target is really 20-25 year olds at Fitness Park, but the Hyrox also attracts an older population. We are going to have 30-40 year olds because if we want to participate, these are races that are relatively expensive, 120-130 euros per place,” informs Florent Williamson.
The production of muscle is not only part of aesthetic research "but also in a muscle that wants to be enduring, in movement and responsive", explains sociologist Guillaume Vallet. The success of these hybrid or obstacle courses matches, to a certain extent, that of climbing gyms. For Guillaume Vallet, this sporting evolution is part of what he calls "a capitalism of vulnerabilities": "Each person is required to prepare themselves, in particular through the body, to face vulnerabilities that could arise. In the type of exercises that are offered within this world, you will find ways of producing muscle that will respond to them."
For the sociologist, the practice of these sports is part of a logic of distinction not only by the social origin of the practitioners but also "through the activity" itself. “We will have on the one hand physiological reactions and a recognition of others which is sometimes at the heart of the desire to go further.” Like an entrepreneur “who takes risks but who can obtain a certain profit”, in this case, “social recognition via social networks or interactions in the room”.
This staging of the "muscle factory" has always existed, indicates the researcher, even if it remained "very circumstantial in France, because it concerned a small group of individuals, who were moreover rather marginalized and frowned upon for a very long time, which was not the case in the United States". It is not across the Atlantic, the temple of bodybuilding, that new concepts appear, but more among our European neighbors.
“When we look for inspiration in the United States, it is mainly in the layout of the rooms, the choice of machines, where they are very efficient whereas they are perhaps a little less so in the field of hybrid where it is less their core target.”
Continuing this quest for “aging better”, the future of gyms could concern more the field of health. “We are working on places in our clubs called Recovery zone where we will be able to do cryotherapy and hydromassage,” explains Florent Williamson.
Which does not surprise Guillaume Vallet: "We are moving towards more immaterial, service-based societies, but precisely we need to remain anchored to something that we experience on a daily basis. The body is this ultimate resource which is at our disposal and which we will be able to seek to valorize as best as possible. All these elements are at the crossroads of the demand for muscle production, and encourage more and more to turn inward and to consider the body as a path to salvation."
