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What exactly is so unhealthy about sitting that this daily habit of ours has cause significant interest among famous community health and exercise researchers? When you sit down in your comfortable office chair or onto your sofa at home, your body shifts into a resting state, and blissful serenity fills your mind. Your coffee cup steams on the table and you close your mind to all external stressors. 

Exercise is medicine! But do people take the medicine? And for how long? Nowadays there is an unlimited amount of proof that physical activity and exercise are beneficial for health. Despite of this, an important question is if people take this medicine (regularly) enough to gain the multiple health-related benefits. Research shows that approximately 50% of all people drop out of an exercise program within the first six months. See Figure 1 below.

Paying not to go to the gym is the title of a US study in 2006 showing that consumers (members of fitness or health clubs) experience difficulties visiting their club regularly. The result of this could be that owners of fitness clubs should sell their buildings or at least a part of it. This statement needs some explanation. 

You as a fitness, health or sports professional know the statement: exercise is medicine! And most people in general understand this too. Nowadays there is an unlimited amount of proof that physical activity and exercise are beneficial for health. Despite of this, an important question is if people take the medicine regularly enough to gain the multiple health related benefits. 

Als fitness professional weet je al dat met de opkomst van low budget clubs sinds 2005 de factor prijs nog meer dan daarvoor een essentieel onderdeel in marketingmix van fitnessbedrijven. De prijs lijkt een hard gegeven, maar de psychologische perceptie ervan is erg belangrijk. 

Hoe starten we een fitnesscentrum? Hoe zetten we een product in de markt? Welk houvast hebben we om iets nieuws te ontwikkelen? Wat we ook allemaal bedenken en willen, iets moet levensvatbaar zijn en blijven. De tijd dat een bedrijf of product wordt gezet op de achterkant van een bierviltje is echt iets vanuit het verleden en het getuigt van naïeve romantiek te denken dat in deze tijd dit volstaat. 

Many fitness professionals advice clients to drink more water. Why is that so important for the body? What is the role of hydration in the body? And what is a healthy amount to drink? 60% of an adults body weight is water which means that water is the largest substance in the human body.

A lot of people are struggling with emotional eating. An Internet survey of 17,000 failed dieters (almost 90 percent of whom were women) found that virtually all of them had relapsed because of emotional issues. "We often see clients who are committed to losing weight, but as soon as they get into a fight with their husband or have a bad day at work, they'll run to the fridge to eat snacks. 

The science behind super foods: are they really super? The term ‘super food’ has become a popular buzzword in the language of food and health. Why? Because it’s healthy? Super foods give a  positive reaction to the body. They say it can give a healing effect. Super foods are pure and without additional ingredients, that’s why these products are often more expensive.

Every year there is a list with the new fitness trends for the coming year. The most popular list is coming from the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM). The research is coming out of 3800 fitness professionals worldwide. 

In the book The future of health and fitness, an impressive group of European Professors explain how to get more Europeans active by 2025.  The book is a must-read document to understand the problem of inactivity and the relationship to health and fitness and how to make a plan for improvements. In terms of health, several diseases are discussed like overweight and obesity. The table below shows the huge amount of overweight and obese persons per country.

Every year the SGMA investigates fitness trends in the United States of America. Usually, the US is ahead of other parts of the world when in comes to fitness. According to the SGMA, the biggest trend in 2011 was walking for fitness, based on a national survey with 38.742 interviews, completed by 15.038 individuals.

December 2013 comes with a special offer for you! Buy the book The State of Research in the global fitness Industry or the book Member Retention in Fitnessclubs and receive The EHFA Retention Report 2013 for free* (which has a € 18,- value).

One of the most used key words in the global fitness industry is motivation. But what is motivation? And how can we understand the principles behind motivation? Lets first define three important concepts:

Every business prospers if it can keep customers loyal for a long time, if not for life. Improving the retention of customers also helps improve the retention of the key staff.

The fitness industry is a trendy world. Trends come and go. When you count all the trends that have been launched globally in the last twelve months, you will get lost. Trends help our industry a lot, but there are cons as well.

When people get older, their level of physical activity and exercise decreases dramatically. An impressive longitudinal study proved that people exercise 55% less comparing the same group on the age of 13 to the age of 27. So inactivity becomes a bigger risk to health when people get older. How come? 

In our industry we often discuss retention. In fact, mostly we refer to member retention. But, we could also discuss employee retention in general or retention of specific groups of employees. For example, from practice in the industry we hear that some clubs have a turnover of sales reps of 200 to 300% per year. Wow!