Recognizing Group Fitness as the Heartbeat of a Successful Health & Fitness Center [Podcast Series]
[:55] Dr. Bantham introduces her guest, Michaela Brown
Michaela Brown is General Manager at VIDA Fitness & Aura Spa.
She is also a member of the Board of Directors of the Health & Fitness Association Foundation.
[1:13] Group fitness meaning
“What it was for me back in the day was a way for me to be authentically me in the health and fitness space. So I am naturally a social person. I am a rhythm based person. I am a person who draws on the power of numbers and tries to be a contributor to the power of others.”
[3:35] Group fitness and community
“There's a unique buy-in, and again, a unique relationship that's forged, where the person who's motivating you is right there, having to be motivated in that same way.”
[6:30] Group fitness as a revenue-generating vital organ
“So group fitness is certainly not a trend. It is a vital organ of health and fitness. We like to think of group fitness as the heartbeat of our gym here. It sells memberships, right?”
[10:25] New generation of fitness instructors
“So I'm always excited by the new generation of instructors that come in here, and what is their take on fitness, and what's their range, and what's their expertise, and how can they breathe new life into some traditional methods and some methods that they're going to create?”
[14:26] DEI in the fitness industry
“We're in a people-centric business. We deal with people of all different types and sizes and backgrounds and needs and conditions. We have a vested interest in the well being of others. Diversity, equity and inclusion is just, those are keywords, catch phrases for what this industry already has been doing.”
[19:00] Representation and inclusion
“Once you get the buy-in, and once you have the representation, then the next level of growth and inclusive leadership, or organizational inclusion, is now pooling all of that knowledge, pooling all of that difference in trying to flip it or leverage it into a wellspring of knowledge. And start looking at policies, marketing, behaviors, leaders under the lens of inclusion. And going through a transformation, sometimes big, sometimes small, where now you start to meet the standard of inclusion and not just look the part.”
[25:09] Health & Fitness Association Foundation meaning
“The legacy that I want to leave on an industry that has meant so much to me and has done so much for me, and an industry that I still very much live in and am a part of, and so this was an amazing opportunity to give back to communities that I want to I want to be represented and to be serviced.”
