Health Clubs Get Fiscally Fit at the Start of the New Year : Business: Making money is no sweat when the ‘resolution people’ show up in droves. The regulars dread the hassle of adjusting their workout schedules--but they know the crowds will soon thin out.
They’re out there, waiting, thousands of them. It’s only one X away on the calendar now. Soon, very soon, they’ll be stampeding into South Bay health clubs like herds of elephants, hogging the weight machines, filling up the saunas, swelling the ranks of the aerobics classes with their ample, holiday-enhanced posteriors--and driving many veteran health club habitues crazy.
They are known in the health club trade as “resolutioners” or “resolution people,” those individuals who have established New Year’s as the start-up date for their latest get-in-shape campaigns. And at health and fitness clubs across the South Bay, owners, employees and veteran club members are preparing for the resolutioners’ annual post-New Year’s onslaught with anticipation, resignation and dread.
Club owners and sales people are anticipating money in the bank. Staff members are resigned to working harder than ever to accommodate the soft-bodied swarms. And veteran club members dread fighting their way through the crowds of new people suddenly paying attention to their long-neglected delts, lats, pecs and abs.
Of course for health club owners, the post-New Year’s period is financial hog heaven. January is to health club owners what the Christmas season is to department store owners.
“Right after New Year’s is the busiest time of year for us,” says Pat Donohue, owner of the Slender You/Body Firm health club in Torrance. “I would say business goes up 50%.” (Club attendance) doubles after New Year’s,” says Tim Richardson, a membership salesman at Nautilus By The Sea in Manhattan Beach.
And so it goes at health clubs throughout the South Bay. With each club membership bringing in a minimum of several hundred dollars a year--and members numbering close to a thousand at some of the more upscale clubs--it’s no wonder that club owners and membership salespeople are delighted with the traditional post-New Year’s stampede.
Other health club professionals--those with a smaller financial stake in expanding membership rolls--take a somewhat dimmer view of the annual invasion.
“Oh God, it gets hectic around here,” complains one employee at the Spectrum Club Manhattan Beach (which is actually in El Segundo). Added the employee, who preferred not to be quoted by name, “You wouldn’t believe how busy it gets. It gets to be a lot of hard work.”
But no one on the health club scene looks at the resolutioner influx with less enthusiasm than veteran club members. To them, the newcomers are a pain in the abs.
“For the first 45 days of every year it’s hard to get a (weight) machine” because there are so many resolution people, says 38-year-old certified public accountant Mario Scaduto, taking a break from the bench press machine in the Spectrum Club weight room.
“We (club veterans) all have to change our workout times in January so we can miss the crowds,” says Dr. Richard McKenzie, 51, a Spectrum Club regular.
The only good news, from the veterans’ point of view, is that they know it won’t last forever--or even a significant part of forever. In fact, if the past is any guide, the post-New Year’s flood of resolutioners will dry up in a matter of weeks.
Just what percentage of resolutioners will actually stick with their get-in-shape resolutions is a matter of some debate. Beverly Triesch, manager of the Spectrum Club, optimistically estimates that 80% of her club’s 1993 resolution crowd will still be around come March. Most others, however, reverse that figure, estimating that 80% of resolutioners will be history by the end of the first quarter.
“It’s a comedy, really,” says the Spectrum Club employee who declined to be quoted by name. “They come in and say, yeah, they’re really gonna get in shape this time. Then as soon as they get sore, it’s all over.”
“Some of them stick to it,” says Heidi Rosner, 31, a TRW employee who works out regularly at the Spectrum Club. “But most of them just go through the motions for a month and then they disappear.”
Says Scaduto, the bench-pressing CPA: “It never works.”
Well, not never. There are success stories. McKenzie, though he grouses about the influx of newcomers, first showed up at the club himself after making a New Year’s resolution. That was 13 New Year’s Days ago. He stuck with it.
And others can too, experts say.
“Psychologically, New Year’s resolutions are not a bad idea,” says Chaytor Mason, a USC psychology professor. “Especially when it’s about something that you know you should do, but don’t really want to do.”
For one thing, Mason points out, people tend to publicly announce their New Year’s resolutions to friends and family members, which makes it harder to backslide. Also, he says, a New Year’s resolution can serve as an easy reference point from which to measure progress.
Mason acknowledges that the resolutioner stick-with-it rate is probably low. He pegs it at about 20%. But, he says, you can increase your odds of success if you make sure your resolutions are attainable.
Who knows? If you stick with it, maybe in early January, 1994, you’ll be able to turn to your firm-bodied counterpart on the next weight machine and say, with a hard-won sense of superiority, “Uh oh. Here they come again. Those damn resolutioners!”
