Running Health & Fitness Centers That Get Entire Communities Physically Active [Podcast Series]
[:55] Dr. Bantham introduces her guest, Mark Harrington, Jr.
Mark Harrington, Jr. is President at Healthworks, Republic Fitness and GymIt.
He is a passionate supporter of Healthworks Community Fitness.
[1:12] Healthworks origin story
“All these women that were looking for a supportive environment to be physically active and feel the benefits of physical activity and kind of the joy of being active with other people finally had an avenue that they could partake in.”
[3:36] Running a family-owned business
“So I kind of got a jaded view of all the issues and challenges with running a health club and, but in hindsight, it gave me a really, kind of good view of really what what happens here, and I've really known to love, kind of all the positive impacts we get.”
[5:56] Building community within clubs
“When we look back at our origin story, our first club was not big and was not beautiful, but what it did have is really amazing customer service, and this really amazing sense of, of community.”
[7:53] Being a good community partner
“So some of the things we look at is, is, how do we get the word out that we're not we're not just some company from another city or owned by private equity that is coming in here to make a buck. How can we be out front and talk about how we really do care about this, and all of our teams care about this, and we were looking for local community partners that share this vision and we can work together to kind of make the entire community more physically active.”
[9:23] Giving back with Healthworks Community Fitness
“Doctors and nurse practitioners can write prescriptions to Healthworks Community Fitness and their patients can come in and get a free, high quality workout, gym and workout program to help with those ailments.”
[12:52] Advocating for the industry
“So I see the hard part of advocacy as the daily connections, or not, not daily, but the regular connections and regular outreach explaining what we do, why it's important, and specifically how it helps improve our local economies, how it helps improve the health of our economies, and how it helps our communities in general.”
[15:45] Overcoming bad perceptions of the industry
“And people have short memories for good things and long memories for bad things, and kind of some of the stuff that's happened more recently has brought fear that kind of industry hasn't evolved into this more public health focused industry that a lot of us are really working for hard. So I think that is, that that is a big part of the problem is, is trying to ungroup potentially bad actors from the majority of the industry that is really helping their communities…”
[19:12] Fitness trends for 2025
“So specifically, when we're looking at our clubs, there is a major desire to lift heavy weights, to say it another way, and we're looking to see kind of how can we satisfy that need, and how can we safely and effectively teach more people to lift heavy weights.”
[21:01] Focus on advocacy and education as part of the HFA Board of Directors
“So how can we educate fitness professionals, which will help uplift the entire industry, which will then kind of improve the industry's, industry’s image, and also improve, improve the effectiveness of, of kind of what of our advocacy, also improve the effectiveness of actually making our communities across the country and across the world healthier.”
[22:33] The PHIT Act
“I do expect there's going to be a lot of positive trends in recognizing physical activity in the public health equation, and whether it's the PHIT Act by name, I do expect significant progress to be made this year.”
