This Month In Running a Gym January 2015

This used to be a weekly column, but there were too many weeks when I was just reporting trivial details or sharing personal experiences that have little to do with the actual running of a gym and therefore little relevance to the point of the column. Monthly seems like it will be far more manageable with more relevant information for y'all. So here goes.

Leon and I had a strategy meeting about a week ago. We reviewed the year gone by and established our priorities for the year ahead. I hope you'll understand that I'm reluctant to publicly share our membership and financial numbers from 2014. I'll just say that moving into a new facility and improving it, such as installing shower rooms, is expensive and can really do a number on your bottom line. But we are on solid footing and things are going to continue to improve through 2015.

The main topic of our meeting was looking forward: What are our long term plans, what are our immediate needs, and how do we get from here to there?

Long term plans are highly dependent on personal goals and what we want for our lives. On that note, I gave Leon my six year notice. Lisa and I have always talked of living abroad again, preferably in Latin America somewhere. In six years our youngest, Xavier, will have finished 5th grade at Holy Rosary which has a dual-immersion English-Spanish program. (By the way, if you have a kid entering school, I HIGHLY recommend Holy Rosary. It's the only truly bilingual school in the South Sound, every parent I've met there loves it, and it's only 3 blocks from the gym. And they're accepting applications for 2015-16.) So six years seems like a good time frame to plan for. It also gives us a definite timeline to work from for business development. No business is ever “complete” but if you want to be able to hand it off to someone it requires a high level of organization and systematization. So now I've got my goal and my timeframe. Leon, by the way, doesn't have similar plans, so you can rest assured that he'll still be here plugging away.

Alright, so that established, we turned our attention to other matters. Namely, what are our greatest needs and opportunities? We narrowed things down to four areas: an Operations Manual, a Trainer Development Program, more community development, more opportunities for athletic development. I'll talk about each in turn.

• Operations Manual - This is the comprehensive how-to guide for how to run a particular business. Ideally I could hand to you a book which contains step-by-step instructions for how to do everything the gym needs to function properly. I have over the years developed a pretty extensive OM for certain positions, but there's more to do. This is something that for now doesn't require a whole lot of extra work on our part. We've already been tracking our own work and how we do it. As we get things streamlined and figure out how to best do them, we'll formalize it into a document and bam! there's your Operations Manual. We'll review things on a quarterly basis and update as we go.
• Trainer Development Program - Or I should say a formal program that can be opened to members and the public. We've been blessed over the years to have trainers who were already teachers, coaches, and fitness nuts who wanted to coach because it's their passion. These kinds of people are already invested in their own development, they don't require any prodding from me to go out and study. As a group we've done various in-house trainings, and I've lost count the amount of money we've spent on outside workshops and certifications for our staff. All good stuff and I can say without a doubt that top to bottom we have the best educated staff of any gym in Tacoma. That said, as Jared and I have made our way through the 200 hour Yoga certification course, we keep talking about how great it would be to have something like it for ourselves. So we started brainstorming what sort of things we'd include in it. The list is currently at 18 general topics, ranging from nutrition to performance psychology. This is what I've chosen as my primary focus for the months ahead. I'm currently developing a module on nutrition physiology and expect to have a 2-3 hour class ready by the end of February. I'll need a couple of beta testers, so if you're interested, let me know.
• Community Development - The most rewarding part of my job since day one has been getting to know the people who come to train with us. It's impossible for me to overstate how much I enjoy the people who walk through our doors daily. I admit there was a time in my life when I was cynical about the goodness of people and the fate of humanity. Looking back with the experience I've had at the gym, and that worldview is so obviously wrong I'm embarrassed to admit it. I'm not alone in this, it comes up frequently in conversation that one of the best parts of Tacoma Strength is getting to be a part of a community of great people. With that in mind, Leon and I discussed ways we can support the development and strength of that community. Leon identified this as the area he most wanted to work on.
• Opportunities for Athletic Development - I was first introduced to CrossFit in February of 2006. In those nine years I have gone through many cycles of enthusiasm and apathy. There have been times where I weighed and measured everything I ate, tracked every single rep, planned my schedule months ahead of time, and counted it all as time well spent. There have also been times when the thought of picking up a weight was intolerable, where I didn't care what I ate or how I looked, where I was interested in almost any athletic endeavor except CrossFit. This is part of a natural ebb and flow, though maybe a little more extreme on either end than most. But I think that most people will reach a point where they think, “Okay, now what? Where do I go from here?” Typically, those that come talk to me about it want to focus down on something and get really good at it. Olympic weightlifting is a great example. There are a lot of people who want to get better at O-lifting and to let the CrossFit side of things take a little break. Exercise is a process and both Leon and I have personal experience with the desire to change focus now and again. A way to facilitate this is to gradually offer a greater variety of classes. The O-lifting class has been a huge success, the yoga class at 5:30 Mon and Wed is growing. What about other types of lifting classes? Perhaps a group focused on fat loss or muscle growth, or running, or endurance? If you'd like to see something that we don't yet offer or want to support one of these ideas, let me know by posting to the comments or emailing me .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address). Expect to see more offerings in the future.

One final thing, since several of you have asked. We are taking apart the structure that is currently the kids area so that we can use it for more training space. The kids area will be moved to the front corner by the glass wall panels. It won't be walled off in the future and for a little while it'll be pretty bare bones. But the thought of not giving kids something to climb and play on just rubs me the wrong way, so we'll eventually install stuff there for them to distract themselves and be active.

By Morgan on Friday, February, 06, 2015