Nowadays I’m hugely passionate about indoor cycling, but 20 years ago I came at things from a design perspective. I used to work in the furniture industry, and prior to that had been involved in the design of other products too, from textiles to fashion accessories and glasses. Design has always been my first love and forte. 

“We believe even the best can always be better. We’re constantly creating, which is what makes my job fun”

At the time, the model was the BODY BIKE Classic. I was fascinated by its quality, but believed a few design changes could make it even better. That included fully enclosing the bike to protect all vital parts from sweat, making it even more long-lasting – an attribute BODY BIKE has always been famous for.

Since then, we’ve continued to push the design boundaries in pursuit of the perfect indoor bike. We believe even the best can always be better – an ethos that’s kept me enthused and engaged over my two decades at BODY BIKE. We’re constantly creating, which is what makes my job fun.

What’s driven your product evolution?

We’ve always given ourselves permission to innovate and experiment at BODY BIKE, which is ultimately what drives our product evolution.

But in terms of key themes over the years, I’d have to spotlight technology and sustainability – both things we couldn’t have predicted 20 years ago.

Back then, cycling classes were screen-free. Now there’s an interest in performance data, so in 2016 we launched the BODY BIKE app; we’ve never believed consoles to be the best approach, as we believe riders should own their own data.

“We’re on a mission to make all our models sustainable, using recycled materials and reducing each bike’s CO2 footprint.”

Meanwhile, sustainability has become a mantra at BODY BIKE. Our sustainable BODY BIKE Smart+ siblings – OceanIX and Forest Green – blazed such a strong trail that we’re now on a mission to make all our models sustainable, using recycled materials in their manufacture and working to further reduce each bike’s already-low CO2 footprint.

And now, in 2024, we’re about to unveil our latest evolution: the new BODY BIKE Phantom, which launches at FIBO next month. With its magnetic braking system, Quattro resistance knob – four clicks per turn for precise gear changes – and inbuilt usage tracking so clubs can rotate bikes for even greater longevity, this fantastic new model continues to move the dial for riders and operators alike.

Has the company changed much?

The ethos and philosophy at BODY BIKE are essentially unchanged from 27 years ago. Each bike is still lovingly hand-crafted in Denmark, with quality, creativity and passion at the heart of what we do. The team is also only 20 per cent larger than it was at the beginning, with great continuity over the years. BODY BIKE was founded in 1997 by Jørgen ‘Peiter’ Petersen, who remained a mentor and brand enthusiast until he passed away in 2017. It is now led by his son Kim Hessellund, who joined the business in 1999. There’s a real sense of family, with several team members with us from the very beginning.

But we have grown and evolved, of course. We now wholly own a 12,000sq m factory in the north of Denmark, including on-site metalworks, and you’ll find our bikes in all corners of the world. In fact, although we’re proudly Danish and have a strong local fan base, 80 per cent of our production is now exported. We also launched BODY BIKE APAC last year: our first investment in establishing our company overseas rather than using local distributors.

Where else does your creativity shine?

We’ve become magazine publishers, launching RIDE HIGH in 2017 – a brand-neutral publication that champions and celebrates indoor cycling around the world. Anyone can promote their own products. I really wanted to bring something to the table that would inspire our whole sector on to even greater things. I’m hugely proud of what RIDE HIGH has become –the fascinating people we’ve interviewed and the great insights and perspectives we’ve shared.

“I wanted to bring something to the table that would inspire our whole sector on to even greater things. I’m hugely proud of RIDE HIGH.”

We have a lot of fun with our FIBO stands too: from spaceships to forests, we create out-of-the-ordinary, crowd-drawing spaces.

And in 2021, we launched BBCARGO: a sister brand to BODY BIKE. This best-in-class eCargo bike puts all our sustainability learnings and bike-building expertise to good use. It just felt like the right thing to do given all the environmental pressures on the world around us.

How has indoor cycling changed?

The arrival of the boutiques was a big one. These beautiful spaces, with their rockstar instructors and incredible music and light shows, took riders into another world, while ‘dancing on a bike’ programming brought a new element of fun to indoor cycling. All of this has driven a dramatic change in consumer expectations, forcing other operators to up their game.

We’ve also seen the diversification of programming generally. From the old days of fitness cycling to generic music, we now have everything from on-the-beat choreography to performance classes and everything in between. There’s something for everyone.

I’ve mentioned technology already, but its impact goes far beyond data. From spectacular AV to wraparound screens, the rise of immersive experiences has been transformational for our sector. I remember the first time I tried Les Mills’ THE TRIP. I had goosebumps. 

It was a privilege to supply BODY BIKES for the global roadshow that introduced THE TRIP to the world. In fact, I’d highlight our strong, long-standing relationship with Les Mills as one of the highlights of my time at BODY BIKE.

What’s the future of indoor cycling?

Right now, indoor cycling isn’t as hot as it has previously been: reformer pilates is the big trend at the moment. I firmly believe indoor cycling is here to stay, though. It’s arguably unique in the way it caters for all ages and abilities in one class, and it has and will continue to stand the test of time – provided it evolves in line with consumer expectations.

In many cases, operators cutting back on indoor cycling – quoting reduced member interest – are in this position because they haven’t invested in creating experiences. It’s understandable, so I’m not criticising: the last few years have been incredibly hard for everyone. But now, as investment budgets finally return, it’s time to upgrade spaces, equipment, technology and most of all instructors. My simple advice: hire the people who will fill the room.

“In many cases, operators cutting back on indoor cycling – quoting reduced member interest – haven’t invested in creating experiences”

The post Uffe A Olesen appeared first on Ride High Magazine.

Psycle launched in 2014 with an ambition to get people hooked on the transformative power of movement. There are no metrics, no scoreboards, no focus on weight loss or calorie count. Just encouragement to come to class, move your body, get lost in the music and free your mind. It’s all about how our classes make you feel.

Our fundamental belief: that the state of people’s health has a direct influence on how they feel, that how they feel determines the attitude and energy they bring to their lives – and that within this pathway to happiness, exercise and movement have a big part to play. 

It’s a judgement-free approach that’s won Psycle a loyal customer base over the last 10 years. 

“Obviously ‘Psycle’ immediately says ‘cycling’, but we don’t want to rebrand. We’re proud of what we stand for.”

How does this approach translate to your cycling classes?

Our programming has always been about putting aside inhibitions and losing yourself to the movement and the music. You will be challenged physically, but you’ll be immersed in the shared rhythm of the class, focused on gratitude for your body and your life, and the endorphins will flow.

We also embed a consciously meditative moment around three-quarters of the way through class. Coming straight after a high-exertion track, riders are in exactly the right frame of mind to switch off mentally and zone in to the rhythm of the music and/or the instructor’s voice.

And in fact, the ‘psy’ element starts even before class, with our instructors spending up to five minutes welcoming people, dismissing preconceptions and sharing the Psycle ethos.

“We’re looking to open a couple of single-discipline locations where we already have Psycle communities.”

When we launched, our mind-music-movement connection was a real USP. It’s less so now as more operators embrace this thinking, but I believe we still bring it to another level through our relentless focus, with regular check-ins and instructor workshops ensuring it’s embedded in every class. 

The result is an uplifting, high-energy, addictive product that’s also low-impact, lending itself to high frequency. When you combine that with the community we’ve created and the ability to get everything in one place, I’m confident ours is a product with longevity.

Everything in one place – how so?

Psycle started out as an indoor cycling brand, but in 2017 – the year I joined the company – it added three additional concepts to its roster: strength (HIIT), barre and yoga. In 2018, we also launched memberships and a benefits package to encourage people to commit and take part in more than one concept.

Ride remains our north star, available in all five Psycle locations and enjoyed by 85 per cent of our customers. However, we recognise that there’s no one perfect workout, and that a rounded approach to training is critical to a healthy body and mind. 

“Pre-COVID, there were too many operators charging premium prices for average products. There is no space for that now.”

Where we have bigger spaces, we’ve therefore introduced additional studios and rolled out concepts that match the demographics of the local market. Of course, this also allows the business to maximise its commercial potential by utilising all available space.

Sadly, demand for yoga was impacted significantly by the pandemic, exacerbated by an ongoing abundance of content available for free online. We do still offer 1.5 days of yoga each week, but have also introduced a fifth concept – reformer pilates – in response to community demand. Since COVID, we’ve realised we need to be in-tune with customer wishes in a way boutiques didn’t really have to be in the pre-COVID boom years.

Can you credibly diversify with the name ‘Psycle’?

Obviously ‘Psycle’ immediately says ‘cycling’, but we don’t want to rebrand. We’re proud of what we stand for. If anything, with mental health an increasingly hot topic, we want to go further in telling our story and explaining our ethos.

But we do now have five different products, so we are considering a reorganisation of the words we use. Rather than sitting five programmes – Ride, Reformer, Barre, HIIT and Yoga – under the Psycle banner, we may shift to ‘Reformer by Psycle’, ‘Barre by Psycle’ and so on. In this way, we take our brand credibility with us, but with more clarity around our expanded roster of classes.

What’s next for Psycle?

We’ve experienced good momentum since COVID, with consistent profitability, which is pleasing. 

Customer experience is now high on our agenda. We’re looking to upgrade our communal spaces to make people feel more luxuriously welcome, creating environments that nurture our community. We’re also exploring benefits and partnerships to further enhance the customer journey and encourage even longer-lasting relationships.

Meanwhile, we’re looking at opportunities to open a couple of single-discipline locations where we already have Psycle communities – where there’s scope to complement our existing offerings for an already-engaged audience. These will not be focused on indoor cycling, as we’ll be opening them in areas where we already offer Ride.

In the future though, even in new locations, we may launch multi-concept studios without indoor cycling. With the cost and complexity of creating a Ride studio – we’re talking over £1m – there are only limited locations in and around Greater London where it’s really viable. Running costs also mean we need 1,000+ bodies on bikes each week just to break even.

“Consolidation under one brand is the way to achieve scale… We’re looking to invest in businesses with ready-made communities.”

Add to that the fact we burned so much money during COVID, and the lack of access to capital right now, and we need to be flexible in how we scale.

What are your plans to scale?

We’ve identified three sites in London that could support multi-studio locations with Ride, and another eight to 10 that could support non-Ride studios –that is, offering site-specific combinations of our four other concepts. After that, we’ll start to look at the white space beyond London, in big cities across the UK.

Looking ahead five years, I’d also like to be in key cities in Europe and Asia, ideally with a local partner but still in control of the brand and the product.

But all of this will only happen if we reach the sort of scale in London that unlocks access to capital; 10+ clubs is the point at which we believe private equity will be interested. 

I believe consolidation under one brand is the way to achieve that scale.

A large number of small operators are running on survival right now, unable to invest in their people or consistently deliver a good enough product. They simply aren’t long-term viable, and in this challenging market, there are few options to turn that around.

This is how we’re looking to scale Psycle, without being aggressive or underhand. We’re looking to invest in businesses with ready-made communities, where the current owners don’t have the funds they need to uplift the product, regain price appreciation and become long-term viable. We’ll invest, become owner and majority stakeholder, put Psycle above the door, bring in our programming and infrastructure, and offer earn-out opportunities.

“We don’t see ClassPass as a discounting tool. In fact, it’s where we drive our highest yield.”

How is the London boutique market post-COVID?

This is a hard business. Many people perceive boutiques to be highly cash-generative, but costs are high if you want the best staff, the best facilities, and to offer great instructor training and development (see ‘A best in class team’, below). You must be committed to a relentless pursuit of class excellence – and even then, there’s no guarantee of success. 

In fact, it’s even harder now than pre-COVID, with ever-increasing rents, rates and service charges alongside consumer behaviours that have fundamentally changed. It’s super-positive for Psycle that the majority of the people who used to train with us still do, but they’re coming 40 per cent less often due to changing working patterns and the ongoing impact of working from home. 

The cost of living crisis is another factor. We’ve seen customers move to lower-frequency products and have introduced a new lower-frequency membership tier to allow for this. We’ve also introduced an under-27s membership, targeting younger customers on lower incomes who used to come more often than they do now. 

“Many smaller operators are leaning on deep discounting to drive footfall at any cost. It’s devaluing what boutique stands for.”

But product quality must still be consistently high. Pre-COVID, I would argue that there were too many operators charging premium prices for average products. There is no space for that now. 

The problem is, as market conditions bite and the number of boutique operators continues to contract, things are going the other way. The sector is now dominated by a handful of multi-site brands alongside ClassPass-led, one-stop shops that are driving prices to the floor. They’re devaluing the product to the point that audiences are unsure what ‘boutique’ really means. 

Doesn’t Psycle use ClassPass?

Since COVID, yes, and actually we really like it: it helps us fill spots that would otherwise not be filled. We allocate the inventory we want, manipulating demand and supply to add footfall across all studios and times.

We don’t see ClassPass as a discounting tool, though. In fact, it’s where we drive our highest yield. 

The cheapest way to enjoy Psycle is always through our own credit packs and memberships, meaning direct-to-Psycle customers continue to make up the majority of our attendance. What ClassPass does is unlock an audience we might traditionally have missed – people who enjoy the flexibility of picking and choosing from a variety of studios and concepts. 

The point is, the discounting issue isn’t because of ClassPass. It’s because of the prevailing mindset in the market. Many smaller operators are now very short-termist, leaning on deep discounting to drive footfall at any cost. It’s devaluing what boutique stands for, and it’s only getting worse.

Boutique is about beautiful spaces, great service, best-in-class instructors and delivering consistently high-quality classes – but it gets increasingly hard to deliver that when there’s so much discounting going on. The sooner we stop the downward price spiral, the sooner we’ll all feel we’re building sustainable businesses.

The post David Watt appeared first on Ride High Magazine.

I’m from Germany, but I’ve moved around quite a lot: school in England and university in London, time spent working for a consultancy firm in Sydney and so on. Each new city I moved to, I’d find a place to work out. I always saw that as my opportunity to meet people – much easier than trying to make connections in the workplace.

There weren’t really boutique fitness studios back then, but there was already a trend – especially in Sydney – towards a more personalised set-up, with small hot yoga studios, PT spaces and so on. Here, you were part of a community: a name, not a number. When I returned to Germany in my early 30s, I really missed having somewhere like that.

“The body needs to do complementary workouts to feel good: yoga, strength training and so on. You can’t just do cardio”

I was still working in consulting then, but in 2015 I went to the Burning Man festival and everything changed. I found my love for cycling and music.

Stopping in Los Angeles on the way out, I tried SoulCycle for the first time and was really excited by it. And then Burning Man… it’s such a huge area that you cycle everywhere. Everybody picks up an old bike and dresses it in ribbons and lights – it gets dark in the desert at night! – and you’re cycling around constantly listening to music, because there’s music everywhere, with different DJs all over the place. You’re never without music. And you’re always cycling.

Experiencing this, having already experienced SoulCycle in LA, I started to ask myself why this wasn’t a thing yet in Europe. Why were our cycling experiences all in brightly lit rooms, in big box clubs, with music as mere background noise?

In the space of a week, I realised this was what was missing in Europe, and that it was my calling to bring it back to Germany. The whole idea of founding BECYCLE pretty much happened at Burning Man.

How did you get it off the ground?

When I came up with the idea, I was introduced to another lady – Viola Huetten – who had been thinking along similar lines. Also German, she was living in New York, and together we set about trying to find investors who wanted to help us build this business in Germany. With no financial crisis or pandemic at the time, there was a lot of appetite to bring successful American businesses to Germany: it wasn’t hard to tell the story or get funding through Viola’s New York network.

“It wasn’t hard to get funding. The challenge was finding a suitable space in Berlin. People didn’t take us or our concept seriously.”

What was more challenging was finding a suitable space in Berlin for our first club. The owners of the buildings we looked at didn’t take us or our concept seriously. They saw two women in their mid-30s and the track record of fitness businesses – which the banks had never seen as a great bet – and they laughed at us.

Finally we found a building in Berlin Mitte, a really good neighbourhood right in the centre of Berlin. The owner still laughed a bit, but he wanted to see if we could make it happen. We had to do everything from scratch, funding the whole renovation and fit-out ourselves, but we knew location was everything and we were prepared to do it.

When did you open?

We finally opened our first BECYCLE in 2016: a 550sq m club with a much bigger concept than originally intended. We’d planned to create a cycling studio, but we ended up creating a place where people came together, with a café and huge community area, kids’ activities, a cycling studio and a second room for yoga, barre, HIIT and now also mat pilates.

My background obviously isn’t in fitness, but I just had a gut instinct that people wouldn’t want to cycle four or five times a week. The body needs to do complementary workouts to feel good: yoga, strength training and so on. You can’t just do cardio. So I pushed to get the broader concept through and we managed to persuade the investors, and in the end it’s what’s seen us through the pandemic. People’s mindset changed during that time and we now have a lot of customers who don’t even cycle at all, so it’s been really positive to have a more holistic offering.

And we encourage people to do a bit of everything: I know my best week is one where I work out four times and can do all the different modalities. Not everybody does that, of course, but the different classes really do complement each other. For example, we introduced mat pilates to meet post-pandemic demand and now people tell us the breathwork they’ve learned is helping them perform better in our cycling classes too.

What’s your style of cycling?

There’s nobody else in Berlin doing our style of cycling, which is performance-based like they used to do at Flywheel; we actually had one of the Flywheel master trainers come over to help develop our programming. We use metrics from the bike, riding to RPMs and watts, and we use leaderboards. It’s very much about improving your performance, not just having fun and dancing on the bike.

“Successfully expanding a business like this is hard. It’s a passion project and highly dependent on the people running it.”

It actually really intrigues me that most other studios in Berlin have gone down the party-on-a-bike route. I never would have thought Germans would be so open to workouts so rooted in pure fun rather than science, but they seem to be doing quite well.

And it’s great for us, because at the moment what we offer is unique. So while in most of our disciplines we simply ask our freelance instructors not to teach at other clubs in a 2–3km radius, we ask our cycling instructors not to teach our style elsewhere at all.

Our standard Ride class is 45 minutes, but we also have a 60-minute Ride+ class, while our 30-minute Ride Xpress is often combined with 15 minutes of strength for a full-body workout. We want the experience to feel personal and truly boutique, so our classes are quite small: for Ride, it’s 30 bikes; for yoga and barre it’s just 18 participants.

What are your clubs like?

We now have three clubs – two in Berlin and one in Düsseldorf – and they’re all third spaces where people come together, work and work out. They’re like mini Soho Houses, with lots of space to linger and connect.

We frontload our investment, working with the same architect across all our clubs to create distinct but equally beautiful spaces across our various locations: wonderful designs and special features, premium materials and so on. In fact, our club in Berlin Mitte won an architectural award.

We also have a specialist lighting designer who’s known for the projects he’s done for a famous Berlin nightclub. We’ve worked with him on our Ride studios, creating ceilings where the lights pulse and chase overhead, spurring you on in your workouts with different colours and intensities and speeds.

The boutique market isn’t very developed in our markets yet, so for now our high design spec is a USP for us. We believe it’s worth the investment, because it means we don’t have to do much marketing. Our customers do it for us, taking photos of our clubs and sharing them on social media.

Club #2 opened mid-pandemic…

It took a while to become well-known in Berlin, reaching occupancy levels that meant our first club was working financially. Our breakthrough year was 2018, with 2019 the best year we’ve had. So that was the year I started thinking about expanding the business.

My sister-in-law, who lives in Düsseldorf, was a huge fan of our concept and asked me to dinner to propose that she set up a BECYCLE club there. I was delighted, because successfully expanding a business like this is hard. It’s a passion project and highly dependent on the people running it: it’s not something you can easily franchise. You need the personal connection of an owner who also runs the business and is there every day.

“I see more opportunities in Berlin: we’re in the east and haven’t yet tapped the many opportunities in the west.”

We found a space in Düsseldorf and created a beautiful club. It’s bigger than the first – we were doing well and wanted to expand – with four studios to offer Ride (cycling), Reformer (reformer pilates), Refine (barre, mat pilates, HIIT and yoga) and personal training.

And then along came the pandemic. In the end, the club opened in July 2020 – after the first, shorter phase of lockdown – so it had a really tough start. The government was great with all the support it provided during lockdown, but as soon as things opened up again, that support stopped. Yet people were still hesitant to come to class. So that was actually the toughest time: 2021, when we’d fully re-opened, and into 2022.

In fact, I can only safely say that we bounced back in January this year – 2023. And even now it’s not easy. We’re definitely still not where we were before COVID.

Tell us about club #3.

Club number three is back in Berlin, in an area of the city called Kreuzberg, but this time it operates under the BEYOND brand as there’s no cycling at this club at all – just reformer pilates, barre, HIIT and yoga.

I’ve become very interested in the reformer pilates trend and how it’s moving in a group fitness direction, set to music and at times featuring some more cardio-focused movements, but still staying true to pilates. And it’s going really well for us, to the point that we’ll probably make reformer pilates our primary focus now, at least in cities where we already have a club that offers cycling; new cities will still have cycling in the mix.

Because creating cycling studios is very expensive: you need to build soundproofed rooms, ideally with theatre-style tiers, and install lots of specialist lighting. There are no such specifications for reformers: you can build multi-purpose rooms and put whatever you want in there.

I also really like the fact that reformer pilates appeals as you age. The way we do cycling, with loud music in a dark box… when you get to 50 or 60 or 70, that isn’t necessarily what you want. Given our members in Berlin are typically aged between 30 and 50 already, and only slightly younger in Düsseldorf, we do have to think about that.

The next challenge will be to find older instructors: at the moment, they’re pretty much all in their 20s and 30s. I find that a shame: I’m inspired by older people who are fit and looking after their health, but older instructors are very hard to find. I don’t actually think there are any in Berlin!

What are your growth plans?

We’ll grow further in Berlin, where we should have taken a cluster approach from the outset. With the market not yet saturated, people are still willing to travel for the experiences they want, and by creating different offerings across our two clubs, they’ve cannibalised each other a bit.

But I do see more opportunities in Berlin, which remains quite a divided city in many ways: we’re in the east and haven’t yet tapped the many opportunities in the west. In fact, there’s another location we’re in discussions on at the moment, which if it goes ahead I hope to open in September.

And I definitely think there’s space for a couple more clubs in Berlin, but this time we’ll cluster. For example, we already have our club in Berlin Mitte, but there’s no reformer pilates there at the moment, so that’s an opportunity.

“The secret is continuing to have fun. We all need to do something we really enjoy, because life is very short.”

I’m also not fixed on any specific modalities: I’m always open to exploring what else is out there, adapting to new trends and interests, and I think we’ll always have at least two rooms to offer a variety of experiences.

Meanwhile, we’re doing well in Düsseldorf. The club is growing every month and it’s a good, affluent city to be in. I’m pleased to be there. But it’s also a smaller city than Berlin, so we’ll stick with one big club and potentially look at other smaller studios in the future.

At some point we might also consider southern Germany, and because my husband and I love Lisbon, potentially Portugal if we can find the right partner: someone who’s willing to invest themselves and have skin in the game.

So there’s a lot we could do. But with life so uncertain at the moment – not only with the situation in Ukraine, but with rising costs too – we have to be a bit careful. Our costs are up 20 per cent, but we haven’t passed that stress on to our members.

What’s the secret of your success?

The secret, I believe, is continuing to have fun. My husband works in start-ups and it’s all about profits and planning exits, but that’s not what I want my life to be.

I think we all need to do something we really enjoy, because life is very short. This is my passion business. I do it because I personally love to take classes every day. I love coming into the studio. I enjoy connecting with customers when I take my turn on the front desk.

And that’s so important. If you lose the connection with your customers, you won’t know what’s going on and you won’t be able to keep improving your services.

My view: if you’re in this business and you don’t feel a passion, it’s probably time for you to be doing something else.

The post Gundula Cöllen-Sorger appeared first on Ride High Magazine.

Formula Wellness & Spa is a large and beautiful club right in the heart of Odessa. It’s a very interesting building architecturally, as it was a theatre until it opened as a health club and spa in March 2006. It was also the first club of its kind in Odessa, with such a wide range of facilities all under one roof, spread over three floors and around 4,500sq m.

We have a 25m swimming pool, a gym and over 30 types of group exercise class, from HIIT to indoor cycling, dance to pilates, TRX to aqua classes. There are also dedicated yoga and CrossFit studios, two squash courts and a fitness café. Alongside this is a separate spa zone with a Turkish steamroom, Finnish sauna and a salt room, as well as spa treatments including medical treatments conducted by doctors.

“Indoor cycling isn’t a big thing yet in Ukraine, but it’s working well for us. Before the war, our cycling classes were waitlisted”

Our members typically live, work or go to school nearby and it’s a very family-orientated club: the average age of our members is around 45 years, as parents come with their children of various ages, many of whom go on to become adult members themselves. Membership, including access to all facilities, costs €1,000 a year.

How popular is indoor cycling?

Indoor cycling is fairly new at our club – we only introduced it about two years ago – but it’s my favourite group exercise class because the results are amazing. 

Indoor cycling isn’t a big thing yet in Ukraine and it’s quite unusual for clubs in Odessa to offer it; there are only one or two that do. Even in Kyiv, only a few clubs offer indoor cycling classes. 

It’s working really well for us, though. At first, our members were unsure about it: they worried it would be too hard a workout. But then a few people tried it and enjoyed it and the word spread. Before the war, it had got to the point that our cycling classes were waitlisted. We were really proud of that.

How has the war impacted your club?

The war has brought a lot of changes. When it started, we had to close our club for three months and stop all our activities. It was only at the beginning of June that we decided to slowly start back up again, with our swimming pool and spa centre only re-opening in October. We’re still offering less group exercise at the moment: around 25 per cent of our usual class schedule. 

In terms of our membership, before the war we had 1,500 members and we welcomed around 450 people a day. Now we have 1,000 members and maximum 200 visits a day. 

Of those 1,000 members, around 70 per cent were our members before the war. The other 30 per cent have either moved over from other local clubs – Odessa might be safer than other parts of the country, but it isn’t 100 per cent safe and many clubs are still closed – or else they’re people who have relocated to Odessa from hotspots of the war, moving to our city for its relative safety.

What we are seeing, though, is that people aren’t committing to annual memberships any more, or even six-month memberships. They’re buying a month, maybe three months at a time – sometimes even just two weeks. 

How close to the fighting are you?

Odessa hasn’t been one of the war’s main hotspots so far, but some of our members and team members have gone to the front to fight. It’s impossible to contact them or know where or how they are, but we’re incredibly proud of them and hope they will return safely so we can thank them for their bravery.

There have been times when the war has come very close, though. On 23 July, rockets attacked the sea port right in the centre of Odessa. It was like a horror film. There were fortunately no victims, but children were crying, people were running everywhere, our team members couldn’t remember what to do – where to take our members to ensure they were safe – even though we’d built a shelter on the ground floor of the club before we re-opened. It was the first time any of us had experienced anything like this and people panicked. It was an important lesson in embedding our safety procedures.

“People aren’t committing to annual memberships any more. They’re buying a month or three months at a time – sometimes just two weeks”

Now, I actually feel safer at work than I do at home – ours is a big, strong building with a shelter, which I don’t have at home – but as we speak, the last few days have still been horrible, as our city has been under constant drone attack.

Even now, I find it so hard to believe all this is really happening. I feel like I’m watching a movie, or else I wake up in the morning and feel like it must all have been a bad dream.

Why re-open Formula so soon?

Choosing to start things back up again was the hardest thing we’ve done, and we thought about it for a long time before we actually did it. We didn’t know how many of our members were left in Odessa, because when the war came, many of those who had a chance to move out of Ukraine did so. We also didn’t know how willing people would be to spend their money on fitness.

“No matter what happens now, I will stay here with my team. This is my country and I don’t want to be anywhere else.”

So, we didn’t know if we’d have enough money to pay our team’s salaries or our utility bills. Choosing to re-open could have been more damaging to our brand and our business than staying closed until things were more stable.

We also have a smaller team now as some people have moved away – as indeed I did for a while. I’m a single mother with two children and I was afraid, so initially I moved to Moldova to escape the war. However, I came back when we decided to re-open the club. No matter what happens now, I will stay here with my team. This is my country and I don’t want to be anywhere else.

And honestly, our team has been fantastic. The most positive thing to come out of all this was their response when we told them we were going to re-open. We asked who was ready to work and everyone who was still in Odessa said yes. 

Additionally, not one of them asked about salary. They just wanted to know the schedule and how they could help get Formula up and running again. They’ve been so dedicated and have worked so hard to make re-opening possible. Everyone tells me they’ve really missed having a routine, going to work and speaking to colleagues and members. People are working for the pleasure of feeling normal again.

Our members also tell us they’re so glad we’re open. People need to do something with their stress at the moment, and fitness and sport are the best possible things for this.

“Everyone tells me they’ve really missed having a routine. People are working for the pleasure of feeling normal again.”

Will the war change things forever?

I’ve been at Formula for 13 years now and I can confidently say our club won’t change as a result of the war. We’re confident the business will come back. People need to do familiar things. They need to deal with stress. Our members tell us they’ve missed their fitness and spa treatments. They’ve missed being able to look after themselves.

So for now, we’ll work to build the club back up again, getting memberships and revenues back to how they were before the war. And then, in the second half of 2023, we’ll look to do all the work we had planned for 2022.

Because we had big plans, including building a new reformer pilates studio and launching new spa treatments for face and body. That’s all on hold while the unbelievable horror of the war continues, but it is just a pause. We’ll get back to our plans in 2023.

What are your hopes for the future?

I always try to think positively, so I look forward to a future – just a couple of years from now – when all our cities have been rebuilt and restored to their former glory. I hope it will be a new era for our country, when Ukrainians return home and we welcome tourists and share our experiences with them.

In the meantime, I simply wish for a peaceful country where I don’t have to worry for my children every time they go to school. My hope and belief is that before the end of 2023, we will have peace.

Information correct at the time of publishing

The post Selling normality in Ukraine appeared first on Ride High Magazine.

We launched Holy Ride in April of this year, inside our first Saints & Stars club in Amsterdam Oud-West – a club that originally opened in 2018.

The ‘why’ is interesting, because when we went back to our original drawings for the club, it included a Ride studio; even before we launched Saints & Stars, we had always planned to offer indoor cycling.

At the time, though, I thought it might be tough to execute three distinct group exercise formats really well, all at the same time. So instead of group cycling, we created our Personal Training offering – something I felt really comfortable with having worked in clubs for years – alongside boxing concept Holy Box and cardio HIIT bootcamp Holy Shred.

Now I realise we should have done Holy Ride from the beginning! Because it’s what our members want, and that’s how we make all our decisions.

We did an in-depth survey of our members and our former members to understand what more they wanted from us and why they had left. The findings were very clear: people loved our brand but we didn’t have all the concepts they wanted. Specifically, we lacked indoor cycling and reformer pilates – with cycling far and away the number one request – and people were going elsewhere for these two disciplines. The decision to create Holy Ride was therefore a very easy one.

How would you describe Holy Ride?

Indoor cycling is the #1 group exercise format in the Netherlands, and in Amsterdam, boutique cycling is incredibly competitive. We knew we needed to do something very different to stand out in a mature market.

At the same time, though, we felt there was an opportunity to raise standards. Looking across the market, we saw too little focus on performance. Yes, a ride has to be fun and a great experience, but we believe the output is important too. We saw strength tracks that we didn’t think were particularly good. We saw immersive environments poorly executed. We saw inconsistencies in quality within brands.

We therefore talk about Holy Ride as ‘Redefining the Standards’, because we’ve taken all of this and turned it on its head in our concept.

We use bikes where you can track all your data and we deliberately make our workouts a little tougher. It’s OK not to be for everyone. We format all our classes, minute by minute, because we believe a strong brand comes from providing the same experience and quality across every class. And we’ve spent €100,000 on the Holy Ride audiovisual system alone, for an immersive experience like no other.

That makes it the most expensive AV system we’ve ever installed, but we had the luxury of the new studio being the conversion of a pre-existing space. The club also already had members, so Ride classes were full the moment the studio opened. We expect to achieve ROI in three months.

Over and above all that, you only have one chance to make a good first impression, especially in a mature market. We were never going to cut corners or skimp on the investment.

“Holy Ride classes were full the moment the studio opened. We expect to achieve ROI in three months.”

Tell us more about the AV.

We knew we wanted to create something really special, so we went outside the fitness sector and spoke to Awakenings Festival – the best festival producer in the Netherlands. It had previously used our studios for smaller events, so we’d seen the incredible lighting and sound effects they could create just from their laptops – far better than anything we’d ever done! We were therefore really keen to work with them, and they were excited by the chance to think outside the box and work on a brand new, small-space concept.

The result is exceptional. We have lasers and LEDs. We have ‘moving heads’ – the tool we use most, which allows us to create all sorts of shapes and effects with our lighting, flooding the space with light and movement.

We have water-based smoke, which is really cool. In a cycle studio, you’re part of a pack, but you also want your own space to focus on yourself. The smoke helps create that sense of personal space, which is impressive given we have 60 bikes in 130sq m of floorspace. I’ve never put so many people in a room

And because our classes are formatted, we know exactly what’s coming, so the sound and light all comes together perfectly with the class content. In a climb, for example, we use music and beams of light to build the ‘scenery’ of a climb. In a sprint, the lighting is suddenly very quick, with lots of colour and lots of white, culminating in a blinding flash of light at the end – done! – and then a sudden plunge into total darkness and silence before slowly building back up again.

The instructor also has the best seat in the house when it comes to the sound. This isn’t the standard approach, but it ensures they’re absolutely on-point in their delivery

Are your stars OK with formatting?

A lot of people say formatting kills creativity, but I disagree. All our classes are formatted, not just Holy Ride, and I believe it’s a real strength for us.

It certainly doesn’t mean the experience is repetitive. Our members typically do around three classes a week, and we change formats regularly enough that you’d be unlucky to do the same class twice. This isn’t hard to do, either, because there are moves in indoor cycling that you always do in every class. If you move sections around to be in a different order, change the music and the lighting, it’s instantly a very different experience. Even just changing 15–20 per cent of a cycling class makes it feel totally different.

Then consider that even good instructors elsewhere might use the same playlist multiple times… I don’t think it’s formatting that makes the experience boring!

The challenge was persuading star instructors of this –because as with all our concepts, I wanted the absolute top indoor cycling instructors in Amsterdam to come onboard and deliver Holy Ride.

We’d done our research and we knew who we wanted, but getting them onboard was the toughest part of the whole project. The secret – other than paying them well and continually training them, which is something we’ve always prided ourselves on – was to get them involved early. We invited them to help develop the concept and the formatting, creating the product they would deliver, and we got the instructors we wanted.

“Our member base grows each time we add a new concept, so it makes sense to make our products as ‘whole’ as possible”

So, you have seven concepts now?

Yes, we have Holy Ride, Holy Shred, Holy Box, Holy Booty, Holy Build – a small group technique-based workout for members only, not those on class packs – Personal Training and our Open Gym.

Holy Shred is the only concept that’s currently on offer at both our locations, because our clubs only about 10 minutes’ cycle ride apart. It’s easy for people to use both of them, depending on which workout they want to do that day.

Our members typically each do three or four of our seven concepts. There’s one cluster who veer towards Personal Training, Open Gym and Holy Build – typically members who like gym workouts but who want a more experiential environment. The other cluster is more group exercise-focused, whereby people mix and match between Holy Ride, Holy Shred, Holy Box and Holy Booty.

When we first set out, I feared that if we offered too much – too many concepts – we might dilute the brand. I no longer worry about that, though, and in large part that’s because our marketing is higher level, focusing on our overarching purpose at Saints & Stars. Particularly for an audience of Millennials and Gen Zs, that’s really important. They want to know why you do what you do.

It’s also the case that our member base grows each time we add a new concept, so it makes sense to make our product as ‘whole’ as possible.

Will you launch more Holy Rides?

We won’t retrofit Ride into our other existing club in Amsterdam Oud-Zuid. The club is large enough to house another studio, but our members spend lots of time in our communal areas and we don’t want to detract from the experience by cramping the space, especially since the 30 per cent growth in membership.

We are, however, opening a new club in Amsterdam in early 2023. If Ride is still in our top three concepts when we design it, it will probably have a Ride studio!

As I say, we respond to what our members want, so in any new club we’ll put in the most popular concepts. We might even introduce an eighth concept in the next one, which at this stage would most likely be reformer pilates. But we’ll always have flexibility in space and mindset to change things in the future if needed. The Gen Z mindset changes all the time. You have to be ready to change with them.

“We respond to what our members want. The Gen Z mindset changes all the time. You have to be ready to change with them.”

Any other plans you can share?

The boutique sector remains challenging, with studios sadly still going out of business since the pandemic; I imagine there may be opportunities to grow further by acquiring and converting existing studios. I’d also love to take Saints & Stars beyond Amsterdam.

The pandemic changed my outlook in other ways, too. For example, I always said we would never do digital content, but in lockdown it was one of the many things we did to keep our community and our instructors engaged with our brand. The content was free to use at that point, and accessible to everyone, and it was great for brand awareness.

Moving forward, although I’m still not 100 per cent sold on digital, I have to recognise that hybrid lifestyles have embedded themselves. It won’t be this year, but at some point in the future I can see us doing some sort of paid-for digital offering.

What’s the future of indoor cycling?

In Amsterdam, which is the market I know, I believe indoor cycling will become increasingly immersive and experiential. There are still a lot of dark boxes at the moment!

We’ll see the technology that customers experience at festivals, for example, becoming affordable for smaller-scale delivery in fitness studios. Operators will need to keep their fingers on the pulse to find the next exciting thing that will engage people in their studio experiences.

We looked at holograms for Holy Ride, for example. In the end, the technology was still too expensive for our business model – for now anyway – but things like this will continue to come through and we need to be ready to embrace it.

“I believe indoor cycling will become increasingly experiential. There are still a lot of dark boxes at the moment!”

What drives you in all of this?

A business like ours isn’t based on spreadsheets or business models or trying make the most money possible. The only way to build a business like this is to do what you love, focus on what you can be really good at, add your own flavour – because a copy job will never, ever work – and then put your whole soul into it.

I love fitness – I train every day – and I love looking for new trends and creating new things. This is my passion and I love the fact that it’s also my job.

The post Tom Moos appeared first on Ride High Magazine.

“Our strategy is to be the #1 destination for boutique fitness and wellness, with each brand the best at its own discipline”

Our conversations began during COVID, and in October 2020 we agreed heads of terms to join KOBOX and Boom Cycle, creating a new umbrella company – United Fitness Brands – of which Joe is CEO, Robert COO and Hilary marketing director.

KOBOX and Boom Cycle officially joined forces and launched as United Fitness Brands in March 2021. The following month we heard that Barrecore was on the market. We’re fortunate to have a strong team behind the combined business, with a very supportive board on which our backers Pembroke VCT, Nectar Capital and Dominvs Group all sit. Through these channels, we were able to raise funds to acquire Barrecore in May 2021.

What is the vision for UFB?
Our strategy is to be the number one destination for boutique fitness and wellness, with each brand the best at its own discipline. We want to provide our customers with the best overall industry experience.

Meanwhile, for the businesses within UFB, it’s about building a single operational platform to achieve economies of scale for multiple brands and accelerate revenue.

We have four brands now, with Triyoga also part of the UFB portfolio since January 2022, and will bring in more over time; from the outset, we envisaged building a group that spanned six or seven different disciplines, as well as continuing to grow within each of those verticals.

UFB currently offers cycling, boxing, barre and yoga. Other potential disciplines might be dance, reformer pilates, non-yoga stretching. We’re looking to capture as much share of a consumer’s annual wellness spend as possible, by offering services within our portfolio that complement each other and that give consumers the products, services and content they’re looking for.

We’ll assess each opportunity as it comes, and it doesn’t just have to be bricks and mortar. It could include digital brands such as content providers, for example.

How do you explain UFB to consumers?
So far, United Fitness Brands hasn’t been consumer-facing. KOBOX, Boom Cycle, Barrecore and Triyoga each have their own passionate team and fans, so it’s important that each brand retains its autonomy.

However, we have been looking closely at how we explain UFB and the relationship between our different brands to consumers, because we’re launching a new Studio Pass membership option this month.

“We’ll assess each opportunity as it comes, and it doesn’t just have to be bricks and mortar. It could include digital brands.”

When customers log on to their favourite UFB brand website, they will have the option of sticking with the existing price structure to use that brand only. Alternatively, they can purchase a Studio Pass membership, with the benefit being that Studio Pass credits can be used at UFB partner brands as well – currently just KOBOX, Boom Cycle and Barrecore, but we will bring in Triyoga too.

The new pricing will make it advantageous to take up Studio Pass membership. There’s a one-week introductory offer priced at £30. Four classes a month is £60, eight classes a month costs £110, 12 classes a month is £150 and for unlimited classes it’s £180 a month.

We hope this pricing will woo people away from the aggregators. Data shows that on average, people visit three studios for three different disciplines a month, and it’s really exciting to offer that variety within our own group of brands. With our Studio Pass membership, you get to be a member of three – and soon four – best-in-class boutiques, all offering something different in terms of workout but all promising you the best 45–75 minutes of your day.

Upper body, lower body, cardio, calmness, flexibility, major muscle groups, smaller muscles… We’re making it easy for people to switch it up in their workouts and reap the physical and mental rewards.

And you have a new booking system…
Yes. Launching this month, it will allow Studio Pass members to book classes at Boom Cycle, Barrecore and KOBOX – and in time also Triyoga – all through one system. It will also be the gateway to live and on-demand digital content, starting with Barrecore.

Then behind the scenes, it’s about insights that allow us to improve the customer journey and run the business more efficiently.

“When we expand outside of London, we’re likely to build multi-brand locations”

Across UFB’s four brands, we have close to half a million customer accounts. That gives us an amazing opportunity to extract good insights into our customers and aggregate all this data in one place. In turn, that allows us to communicate in a more efficient, targeted way, offering our customers more of what they want: the classes they want, when and where they want them, as well as sending relevant offers for apparel, say.

For the business, then, this new system is about securing more accurate, current data, allowing us to make faster, more informed decisions: adaptations to our packages, our timetables or our staffing to improve the customer journey, for example. It will certainly present ecommerce opportunities, too, and could even give us insights into where we might expand physically.

It simply wouldn’t be possible to invest in something like this as separate entities – we’re talking a five-figure investment and a system that’s taken many months to build – but together as United Fitness Brands, our distinct boutique operations are able to benefit from the sort of insights that normally only large businesses can afford.

Tell us about your multi-brand studios.
We opened our fourth KOBOX studio at Boom Cycle’s Waterloo location in July of last year, and when Barrecore’s Chelsea lease expired, we moved it in alongside KOBOX on the Kings Road.

Of course, with 23 sites across London, we already had a number of studios in striking distance of each other – and a good number of customers who already visited at least two of our brands – so it will be interesting to see what incremental crossover these multi-brand studios generate. It’s certainly too early to tell at this stage: people still aren’t really coming back into offices to work, so visit numbers remain down in locations like Waterloo. We’ll need more time to assess the impact of multi-brand studios in London.

What we do already know is that when we expand outside of London, which we expect to do towards the end of 2022 and into 2023, we’re likely to build multi-brand locations. Each will have a shared communal area, two or more studios and perhaps some wellness services – massages, for example.

This will, of course, all be data-led. We know who our customers are and we know the perfect customer for each brand, so we’ll be able to identify which street in which city would work for each. And the great thing about UFB is that each brand can roll out independently or we can group them together to suit each location.

What are your growth plans for the next few years?
We now have 23 owned locations – four KOBOX, five Boom Cycle, 10 Barrecore and four Triyoga – as well as two Barrecore franchises in Manchester and one in Leeds, and thus far there’s been sufficient funding to grow the business through our own board.

“We have international growth aspirations, with our eyes on the Middle East in particular as an exciting opportunity”

In time, though, we will need to look at financing options for the next big step: we’re always having conversations and looking at potential sites, and there’s sadly lots of market opportunity post-COVID. That said, we are looking to embed our four brands before we make any further bricks and mortar acquisitions.

We will grow our number of brands and locations per brand in London, however, as well as outside of London, including multi-brand studios in smaller cities across the UK.

With these multi-brand studios in mind, we’re also starting to think more about branding. United Fitness Brands is rather corporate-sounding, so in time this name may disappear in favour of a new, more consumer-friendly name as yet to be decided.

Finally, we have international growth aspirations, with our eyes on the Middle East in particular as an exciting opportunity. There are lots of areas opening up to women in that region; if we could put something like boxing out there, we feel that would be a big step forward.

The post United Fitness Brands appeared first on Ride High Magazine.

“If you consider the word ‘activist’, it means someone who brings about change,” explains Caroline Macklin, head of brand for Virgin Active. “We’ve listened to our members, upped our game and hired the best of the best to channel their vast knowledge into bringing about change in our group exercise offering.”

“In other companies, you have a head of group exercise,” adds SJ Aboboto, Virgin Active’s cycle activist. “Virgin Active has done things differently, bringing in expert instructors to each dedicate themselves to one of the ‘big five’ disciplines. It’s about getting the very best out of each product, raising things to an experiential level that heightens member satisfaction and encourages people to try new things and mix up their workout routines.”

Here, Aboboto tells us about the new group cycle programmes she’s created for Virgin Active, with a roll-out that starts this month.

What’s the rationale behind the new programming?

We’ve set out to define who we are – to define the Virgin Active experience across all our disciplines – so whichever club you go to, you know exactly what you’re going to get.

Within that, it’s important that the experience is unique to us – that we own the product and are able to keep evolving it – so each activist has been busy creating signature classes that bring the boutique studio experience into our clubs.

“We’ve set out to define who we are, so whichever of our clubs you go to, you know exactly what you’re going to get”

What this means is that, while instructors of course inject their unique energy and personality into their classes, the formats themselves will now be consistent – and classes of a consistently high quality – across all our clubs and studios.

This is an important change from where we’ve been up until now. In cycle, for example, all classes have historically just been called Group Cycle, with the style and format varying from instructor to instructor. Our new programmes will ensure a consistent, and consistently great, member experience.

What cycle concepts have you created?

I’ve designed four new signature classes: MOVE, TEMPO, POWER and PRO.

MOVE is a boutique-style concept that’s all about cycling to the beat: lots of choreography, upper body and weights. We don’t use the console at all in this class.

POWER is a performance-based class that’s similar to outdoor cycling, with an emphasis on technique and moving in and out of the saddle. The console is very important in this class, focusing on data as you push towards benchmarks and goals.

“I’ve had lots of instructors initially tell me ‘I only instruct power’, but by the time they’ve done the training, 90% have changed their minds”

TEMPO is a hybrid class that fuses power and rhythm cycling: some sections are simply to the beat, others are more focused on the console. There’s an option of upper body movement, but it’s more basic than in MOVE and if it isn’t your thing, that’s cool – just ride.

And then PRO is all about a connection between the bikes and a big screen at the front of class, with a heavy focus on data.

Each class has a blueprint, a journey to follow, with instructors able to inject their own musical choices onto this. Anyone wanting more guidance can access monthly templates with suggested music tracks – mixing genres, tempos and RPMs so there’s something for everyone – and more details on choreography.

What does this variety achieve?

First of all, it’s about inspiring new people into cycling, as well as keeping existing cycle fans happy with different styles of class: some like data and pushing themselves hard, others like to be distracted from the workout with music, choreography and upper body work. You have to ensure there’s something for everyone.

It’s also about ensuring instructors are happy, with a class style that fits the way they like to teach. If we want to deliver the best possible experience for members, they must be comfortable with what they’re teaching.

That said, the training process has been really interesting. I’ve had lots of instructors initially tell me ‘I only instruct power’, but by the time they’ve done the training – I train everyone in both programmes – 90 per cent have changed their minds.

Even if they don’t teach both, it’s really important to have a knowledge of both programmes, to answer member questions and to understand there’s no right or wrong. As long as everything you do on the bike is safe and has a purpose, it will bring something to the workout.

For example, the upper body weight track is something a lot of people question, because the weights aren’t heavy and the wattage not high. That’s true, but it brings fun, rhythm and co-ordination. It has its own benefits, so I’m keen that everyone is educated across all formats.

Really, my advice for members and instructors is the same: Just come and try it!

Tell us more about the training.

Even if you instruct at Virgin Active already, these are new products, so we’re supporting instructors with two weeks of e-learning followed by four weeks of face-to-face practicals and webinars. Finally, before go-live, there’s an assessment where you deliver a 20-minute ride including intro and outro.

“I constantly have an eye on how I want to evolve the product – where we can take it, what trends we can explore, what trends we can create”

We also take instructors to our Aldersgate club, our first full-experience studio, to get a real sense of how an immersive boutique experience should feel for our members.

Alongside this, we’re also developing our own Level 2 indoor cycle qualification, which we’ll release in Q4 of this year and run through The Virgin Active Academy at our Mansion House head office.

What’s the roll-out plan?

We’re initially launching TEMPO and POWER, with MOVE and PRO to follow shortly after.

TEMPO and POWER will launch in eight clubs this month and then roll out from there. In the classes I’ve been instructing recently, I’ve effectively been instructing TEMPO and I’ve had amazing feedback, but it’s still been under the Group Cycle label.

How about online classes?

We have a purpose-built studio at Mansion House where throughout lockdown, us activists have been filming classes for Virgin Active’s app; I’ve been doing cycle and dance.

This started during lockdown, but digital content was always part of our strategy and feedback from our members has been really positive. Club+ members have access to all our digital content included in their membership. Online+ members can get a free 30-day trial and then pay £9.99 a month, or £99.99 for 12 months upfront, which also gives them access to club passes: monthly Online+ membership gives you one club pass, an annual package gives you four, and you can buy more to suit your lifestyle.

We’re trying to provide complete flexibility in how people work out with us.

What does your typical day look like?

It’s totally different every day. I design programmes, instruct live classes, film on-demand content, run masterclasses, upskill instructors, develop the core team and nurture members who want to become instructors. I support clubs in achieving good levels of occupancy, retention and experience. And, of course, I constantly have an eye on how I want to evolve the product – where we can take it, what trends we can explore, what trends we can create. It’s a busy role!

“Music should be a driving force across all products, not just rhythm cycling but power-based classes too”

What’s your secret for a great class?

When you’re cycling outdoors, you have the scenery to inspire you. In the studio, it’s all down to the instructor and the music.

Music should be a driving force across all products, not just rhythm cycling but power-based classes too. Get it right and it enhances performance as well as the experience: your body naturally matches itself to the beat.

Music is an energising force and it sits at the heart of every great class.

The post Activism at Virgin Active appeared first on Ride High Magazine.

We’ve had a strategic partnership with the Swedish Olympic Committee since 2013.

The Committee helps us secure Olympic training standards for our hotels’ sports and fitness facilities, ensuring everything is good enough for an Olympic training camp. In return, we help them with their Top & Talent programme, whereby we host training camps for their existing and up-and-coming stars at two of our hotels: Playitas Resort and Sivota Retreat – powered by Playitas. When it opens in May 2022, Porto Myrina – powered by Playitas will also host Olympic training camps.

“We host training camps for the Swedish Olympic Committee, for existing and up-and-coming stars”

The camps can be week-long pre-camps for the whole Olympic team to prepare for the next Games; cluster camps, where a few different sports come together to train and learn from each other; or individual camps, where between one and three athletes come to use our facilities for pre-season or pre-competition training.

For example, Playitas Resort recently hosted the Swedish handball team for a pre-camp before the Tokyo Olympics. And the full Swedish Winter Olympics team stayed and trained at Sivota Retreat in May 2021, the first week we opened.

Tell us more about Sivota Retreat – powered by Playitas.

We took over management of the hotel during COVID lockdown, renovating the whole of the existing sports infrastructure as well as building new padel courts, a large gym, a group cycling space and a WOD Box for functional-style training. We also refurbished all 151 guest rooms and the common areas, and built a new à la carte restaurant.

The hotel was then relaunched as ‘Sivota Retreat – powered by Playitas’ on 17 May 2021 – two days after Greece re-opened for tourism – making it one of Apollo Sports’ five concept hotels. [See The launch of Apollo]

“We host professional athletes every week. Guests find it inspiring to holiday in the same place as their heroes.”

Sivota Retreat – powered by Playitas offers a wide range of land- and water-based activities that include fitness, padel, tennis, group cycling, mountain biking, road and gravel cycling, waterskiing, wakeboarding and wakesurfing, stand-up paddleboard (SUP) and kayaking.

We have three tennis courts, three padel courts, and our location in the mountains means we’re surrounded by perfect tracks for running, hiking and biking. There’s a pool area with separate children’s pool, but the sea is also crystal clear and ideal for open water swimming, SUP and kayaking.

Our fitness offering includes a brand new Casall PRO gym that’s been equipped to the Swedish Olympic Committee’s standards for Olympic training, with extensive resistance and cardio training options.

What about group exercise?

We have a very busy group training schedule, regularly running multiple classes at the same time, so there’s plenty to choose from. We do have space to move things indoors on particularly hot or rainy days, but other than gym-based training, much of what we do is delivered outside. Being outdoors is, after all, why people come to us – it’s a lovely climate to train in.

Classes include functional training, yoga, dance, cardio and group cycling, to name just a few. Our cycling classes are already really popular and with just 15 bikes they’re always full, so we’ve had to add more classes to the timetable and now run several every day.

At Apollo, we have a strong focus on sustainability – including, when not restricted by COVID measures, no single-use plastic – so we’ve installed BODY BIKE OceanIX. These are manufactured using recycled plastic fishing nets, so they’re a great fit for us.

Which of your facilities did the Swedish team use?

This was the Swedish Winter Olympics team, so it was very much pre-season training, building endurance and strength in preparation for Beijing 2022.

They did a lot of group cycling, mixing it up so different sports teams were training together. They loved our outdoor cycling space, enjoying the beautiful views over the crystal clear turquoise sea and green island beyond.

They also did lots of Olympic lifting and technique training, as well as general team-building. By the time athletes get to the Games, they’re so focused. Training camps are the perfect ice-breaker – a chance to get to know your team-mates ahead of the Games.

What’s the balance between elite training and holidaying enthusiasts?

Although we host professional athletes every week – not just the Swedish Olympic team, but all sorts of elite sports professionals – they only make up around 5–10 per cent of our total guest base. They’re also self-sufficient, in that they bring their own coaches and programming, so our in-house coaches can still focus on our other guests.

Occasionally, a team will take over the whole hotel; that was the case with the Swedish Winter Olympics team in May. But generally, elites and holidaying enthusiasts are here at the same time and there’s no problem giving them all a great experience. In fact, guests find it really inspiring to be holidaying in the same place as their sporting heroes.

What’s special about your sports and fitness experiences?

Our guests take their sport seriously, and so do we. There’s none of that animation team stuff, with entertainment organised in the evening. We’re about sport, pure and simple, with high-quality facilities and professional instructors: PTs, group exercise instructors, cycling and triathlon coaches, tennis trainers and so on. We also pride ourselves on our high service levels and great F&B. It all leads to high levels of customer satisfaction.

“Training camps are the perfect ice-breaker – a chance to get to know your team-mates ahead of the Games”

Is it all-inclusive as far as activities go?

Our Sports Inclusive concept – which is enjoyed by all guests – means all activities other than one-to-one training, motorised watersports and premium bike hire are included in the price.

The philosophy of ‘powered by Playitas’ is that everyone who wants to do so can train freely, trying out new sports and sharing the joy of training without worrying about the cost.

Are guests’ expectations changing?

We’ve certainly evolved the formula of our gyms over recent years, moving away from big, fixed gym equipment and towards Olympic lifting and functional training. Our WOD Box is hugely important, for example.

We’ve also put Zwift areas into our gyms in response to guest demand. And ever since COVID, guests are keen to train in smaller groups – even though, with all our outdoor training options, we’re now are allowed to bring more people together. That’s fine with us, though, because smaller groups means more personal attention from the instructor, and that fits well with our premium approach.

Are there new resorts in the pipeline?

In addition to the opening of Porto Myrina – powered by Playitas next May, we will also open another resort – a 250-room hotel in a brilliant location in Europe – in April 2022. That’s all the detail I can give you right now though: it’s still top secret! What I can say is that indoor cycling will absolutely be on the agenda there, too.

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The first studio concept is POWERIDE: a results-orientated class with a slight element of competition, but without being intimidating. We use ICG’s Coach by Colour for live visual data and we focus on improving power output by working through the zones, all to the beat of the music.

The second is JUST RIDE, which is designed for those who simply want to switch off, enjoy the music and ride. It’s music-led, but there’s no choreography, stripping cycling back to its foundations and focusing on endurance.

The third is HARDCORE CYCLE, a HIIT-based class that’s all about max intervals on a bike. We don’t ride to the beat in this class, but we do use the phrasing of the music to initiate the intervals.

Between them, these three studio concepts account for 20–30 sessions a week from a total timetable of 180–260 classes, depending on the club.

CS: We didn’t want to create six, seven or more different cycle classes. We wanted a smaller programme of exceptional, clearly distinct concepts that between them still offer something for everyone. I believe it’s the right approach, and certainly, in terms of participation, cycling is in the top three most popular group exercise activities at Third Space.

It all sounds quite performance-centric?
CS: Certainly on the gym floor, our small group cycle training is performance-based, with two separate programmes: Wattbike is about enhancing your FTP (functional threshold power), while Wattbike Sprints is about anaerobic power, anaerobic capacity and VO2.

We’ve tried to bring elements of this into the studio, too: power-based training in POWERIDE, for example. The secret here, though, is to hide the science in the experience. It’s why we use zones rather than hard data in POWERIDE, and why the instructor also plays a pivotal role, bringing their own unique flavour to the delivery of every experience.

We have a very fitness-savvy audience. Our members are looking for fitness with a purpose.

We do have a very fitness-savvy audience at Third Space, though, with highly educated members who are looking for fitness with a purpose. All our concepts are therefore underpinned by science – not just physiology but also the science of music, behavioural science, social science and so on.

SM: All that said, JUST RIDE is a great entry-level class. Although the training focus is endurance, we don’t talk about it in great depth as we would in POWERIDE, for example. The language we choose is specifically designed not to put people off. We talk about how things feel, but actually, there’s minimal chat: it’s about letting people switch off and connect to the music.

What ethos underpins all your programming?
CS: Identity and consistency are key. We have a growth mindset – we’ll be opening three more clubs in London this year, in Mayfair, Moorgate and Wood Wharf – and everything has to be scaleable. This means clear templates for each programme, into which instructors can inject their own personalities and knowledge.

SM: We’re also very strict about not allowing class creep, ensuring each concept has its own distinct identity. That’s the case not only between our three cycling concepts, but between all our signature disciplines, so there’s never any confusion as to which class you’re participating in.

With cycling, for example, you’ll know the moment you walk into the studio which class is about to start, whether it’s the pink light at the beginning of JUST RIDE, using the Coach by Colour mode for POWERIDE, or the music you’ll hear that’s specific to HARDCORE.

What is the vibe in your studios?
SM: There’s a welcoming, clean, happy vibe when you walk into the studios across our six clubs, but each club is also unique.

In non-socially distanced times, Canary Wharf has 85 bikes, with an incredible eight-speaker sound system. At the other end of the scale, the Tower Bridge cycling studio would normally have 21 bikes, so it’s more of an intimate feel. Marylebone doesn’t have a cycling studio, but we do offer Wattbike sessions on the gym floor.

We aim to have consistent lighting and technology systems across all clubs, though, so instructors can create exactly the right mood at the right moment, as well as a different atmosphere for each class.

How aligned are your gym floor and studio offerings?
CS: As I mentioned before, there are definitely elements of performance working their way from the gym floor and into the cycle studio, but I think there’s more we can do to collaborate moving forward.

At the moment, there are lots of members who do Wattbike but not studio classes, and vice versa. We need to find the link – the common thread – that will encourage more crossover. This is something we’re actively investigating.

How have you adapted to COVID-19?
SM: We went online during lockdown, as so many operators did, with a filming studio created in our Canary Wharf club. However, cycle is quite a new addition to our online offering, so of the 350+ classes available on the Third Space app, only a handful are currently cycling. Participation in these classes obviously requires significant investment in home equipment, and there’s already so much competition in this space, not least Peloton.

All that said, online is here to stay and I would love to develop more online cycling content, and potentially some live streaming going forward.

We also have two pop-up outdoor venues at the moment, where classes are free for members and £20 for non-members. The Tower Bridge venue is running HIIT/strength-based classes, while at Canary Wharf, it’s cycle, yoga and HIIT/strength.

What will be the longer-term impact of COVID?
CS: In terms of member behaviour, it will be some time before we fully understand the impact of COVID. We only have a few months of insight to draw on so far, from when we opened last summer, so it’s really hard to predict what will happen.

Online coaching is about telling. We believe great coaches listen, and this is easier in-person.

What we do know is that members are asking for group exercise, both for the in-person coaching and for the social aspect. I personally believe that, once people re-engage in our live classes, they’ll realise what they’ve been missing over recent months. Online is great, but online coaching is about telling. We believe great coaches listen, and this lends itself much better to the in-person environment.

However, some behaviours will inevitably change as a direct result of changed working patterns, and that’s significant for us: we do have some residential developments in all our catchment areas, but many of our clubs are heavily corporate and we will need to continually re-evaluate. We’ve been speaking to lots of CEOs who are keen to have their teams back in the office, and whose teams are equally keen to be back for the interaction, but we’ll have to see how it goes.

SM: One other notable impact of COVID has been on the way we approach instructor recruitment and training.

It used to be that we’d run extensive auditions followed by full-day, in-person workshops for each programme. COVID has forced us to change this approach, with auditions via video and training done independently and online. Much of the onus is now on the instructor to work through all the materials we send them.

Of course, in-person is nice, but this new way of doing things is so efficient that I think we’re unlikely to go back to our old way of doing things.

What other initiatives are you working on?

CS: When it comes to innovation, a lot of people talk about the product. However, perhaps particularly when it comes to group exercise, we believe you have to start with an understanding of member behaviour and build your classes around that.

In the aftermath of COVID, people will still train from home, but they’re bored of screens and they want a social outlet. We’re therefore looking at apps and software solutions that will allow us to link our live and virtual experiences. We want to make sure that, through our app, we can become the hub for our member community wherever they are.

The future is about separating things out more, creating distinct concepts with unique identities

SM: I don’t believe the experience of in-person group exercise can be replicated online, so I definitely see people training in-club still. I think some elements of the online experience will work their way into the studio, though, which goes back to what Chris is saying. People have found a new love for data and app connectivity over the past year of lockdown training, and we need to reflect this in our offering.

What’s the future of indoor cycling?
CS: I see a number of different factors playing a role. The first is identity; you can’t have a generic cycling class any more. The future is about separating things out more, creating distinct concepts with unique identities.

I also see the emergence of even more expert coaches – instructors who are able to deliver an enhanced member experience based on the application of knowledge and an in-depth understanding of people’s behaviours.

And then there’s connectivity, which can enhance the member experience and allow you to scale what you create. You might create an ecosystem that uses technology to link from club to club to club, as well as into members’ homes. You might set up team challenges or mass virtual events, introduce gamification, track performance via specific metrics, forge online communities. COVID has accelerated our sector’s investigation of what’s available and possible, and I see this being redefined quite quickly.

Finally, there’s collaboration. This will be key moving forward, whether that’s a technological collaboration or acting as a gateway to other ‘real world’ opportunities – outdoor cycling clubs, for example, which might appeal to our members. I think operators have to recognise we can’t do everything any more. But if we get it right, we can be the hub.

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I’m now 22 years old and I started playing golf when I was seven years old. I was in the garden with my parents and took a couple of swings with a golf club. They looked at each other in a way that said “wow, that was really good!” A couple of weeks later, I started at the local golf course and just got more and more interested in the game.

At the age of 13, I was picked for the national team. It was still the junior team at that point, but I moved across to the ladies’ team before I turned 18.

Probably my biggest career highlight to date was competing in the World Championships in Mexico in 2016, when I came second individually and helped the Danish team secure fourth place.

I had the same operation as tiger woods. i find it helps people understand if i say that.

How did you get injured?

I started feeling pain in my back six years ago, but the specialists said I only needed to go back and see them if / when I started to feel pain in my leg. Apparently it’s a condition I could have had since I was born, or from a young age, and in most people it doesn’t develop too quickly. It might never have got to the point of leg pain.

Sadly, the condition progressed rapidly with me: by March 2019, while I was at college at Florida State University, I started to feel nerve pain in my leg. It’s hard to describe, but I couldn’t actually feel my leg: just a burning pain inside it. By summer of that year, the leg pain was so bad I couldn’t even feel my back pain any more.

I’m on a full scholarship and I didn’t want to let the university down by being injured and unavailable to play, so I carried on playing. I also spent an hour to an hour and a half every day at the university’s rehab centre. They have great facilities there for the student athletes and I think that’s why I managed to keep going for as long as I did.

But ultimately the pain spread through my whole leg, hip to toe, and by May 2020 I couldn’t even walk. By this point I was back in Denmark, having flown home in March due to COVID.

I knew there was no way out of it: it was time to have an operation.

What did the operation involve?

I had the same operation as Tiger Woods – I find it helps people understand if I say that – so it wasn’t without risk and I was quite nervous about it.

The surgery was designed to stabilise the lower part of my back: L4, L5 and S1 for those who know their way around a spine. My L5 in particular had moved so far out of position – 21mm – that they had to stabilise it from both directions, putting screws in through my back and through my stomach.

they had to go in from both directions, putting screws through my back and through my stomach

How is your recovery going?

I had the operation on 30 June 2020 and, while we have to wait and see how it goes from here, so far it’s been 100 per cent successful.

My leg pain was totally gone the moment I woke up from the anaesthesia and my six-week check was also very positive: having initially been told I wouldn’t be able to start putting until three months after the op, in fact I was allowed to do small amounts after just six weeks, provided I felt no pain. I also started some easy rehab work to get some mobility into my back. A couple of weeks later, I started doing small chip shots around the green and now I’m up to 60m pitch shots. I can start full swings on 30 December.

Alongside all of this, I was keen to start rebuilding my fitness levels and I knew cycling – as a low-stress option for the body – would allow me to get my heart rate up far earlier than running would.

Very kindly, BODY BIKE gifted me an indoor bike to support my recovery. I started cycling as soon as I started rehab in mid-August and I’ve tried to cycle every day, even if just for 20 or 30 minutes. I’ve complemented that with some balance pad work, resistance band and Swiss ball exercises. I’m very happy to be able to do some simple workouts in the comfort of my own home to boost my recovery.

How important is cycling to your rehab?

It’s been a great way of optimising my recovery, building fitness in the early stages of my rehab while minimising the risk that something might go wrong.

It’s been great mentally, too, to get going before I slipped into a habit of not training. I feel like I’m in a better place already, back in an exercise routine, and that’s thanks to cycling.

my goal is to be ready to play by march 2021. it’s ambitious, but i think it’s possible.

It’s a mental boost too, and that also benefits my golf: the better shape I’m in, the easier I find it to focus on the course. I think it would have been much harder had I been trying to get fit at the same time as trying to properly focus on my game again.

Is cycling something you’ll continue to do once you’re fully recovered?

Absolutely. My physio told me many years ago that running wasn’t the best option for me, so I’ve always favoured cycling or cross-trainer workouts over running, just because they’re low-impact.

I will probably start going for a couple of runs a month when I’m fully recovered, as I did before, but I think – and this goes for everyone, not just me – it’s good to choose forms of exercise that protect your body and minimise risk of injury. We all want to be here for as long as possible, so we need to take care of our bodies.

I enjoy cycling, too, both indoors and outdoors: I do it because I like it, not because I have to. Golf has always been my ‘me time’ – a chance to clear my mind of the other stresses in my life and just focus on my game – but in fact, I’ve found cycling is giving me the same feeling. I can either sit on my bike and think the day through as I ride, or I can put my music in my ears and cycle as fast as I can!

Will you recover fully?

The fact it was my lower back that was operated on, rather than up towards the shoulders, should mean my swing is less affected.

In fact, I used to rotate quite a lot in my swing: too much. It could even be that having my lower back pinned and stabilised is a good thing, reducing my rotation!

What are your goals now?

I don’t have a specific tournament in mind at this stage, but my goal is to be ready to play by March 2021. It’s ambitious, but I think it’s possible. I’m pretty stubborn: if I think there’s a chance, I’ll go for it. My ethos throughout this whole thing has been: ‘Where there’s a will, there’s a way.’

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