11 Gym Challenges to Keep Member Motivation High

Sometimes finding the motivation to work out can be tough. When January hits, members practically motivate themselves with New Year’s resolutions and commitments to health and fitness. As the year goes on, that motivation can start to fade. A key part of member retention is finding ways to maintain motivation so that members continue to see results and value in your business.

A gym challenge is a surprisingly simple yet effective tool to boost motivation and achieve member results. If you can tap into a person’s motivation and desire to work out, members tend to be more consistent, which means they see results. If motivation dips, consistency drops, and you stop seeing results, it’s a cycle. Creating a gym challenge gives members a goal, timeline, and method to hit a new level. If you’re looking to improve member retention and drive acquisition, gym challenges are your friend.

What is a gym challenge?
4 benefits of a gym challenge
11 gym challenge ideas your members will love

What is a Gym Challenge?

A gym or fitness challenge gives members a precise goal. It’s more than just getting fit, which can be a bit vague and overwhelming. By pinpointing a specific goal, you can create a straightforward challenge for members. What’s great about challenges is that they help to create healthy habits that members can continue even after the challenge.

The complexity of your gym challenge is down to you. The best setup depends on your brand and customers. Most gym challenges suit a range of fitness levels as you can adapt the goal or movement for different abilities. Workout challenges can benefit new gym-goers as well as experienced lifters and athletes.

When creating a gym challenge, you provide the goal, timeline, method, and encouragement. For example, with a 30-day plank challenge, members have 30 days to complete the challenge. Throughout this time, you would send emails and reminders to complete daily tasks. This could include tips on form and encouraging words. The idea that you’re performing a challenge as a community is a great motivation in itself.

4 Benefits of a Gym Challenge

Owning a gym comes with its own set of challenges. Keeping members engaged and motivated is hard and requires a multi-faceted approach. Gym challenges are ideal for those members who want to work out alone but love a sense of competition. They need a little push and a friendly sense of competition can do just that.

1. It Holds Members Accountable

Your fitness accountability strategy is how your gym plans to hold members accountable for their actions. Accountability is important in fitness or in an environment when you’re trying to make a change. It could be trying to eat healthier or going for a daily walk. When you feel accountable, you take responsibility for your actions. When members feel like you’re watching and monitoring their progress, it can help to hold them accountable and encourage them to show up and complete the challenge.

2. It Encourages and Celebrates Members

A gym challenge gives you a chance to celebrate your members and encourage results. Sometimes it is hard to see progress. By judging progress on the number of reps or time to complete a task, members begin to see progress in a different way. Challenges give you the opportunity to celebrate members and make them feel properly engaged with your brand.

3. It Promotes Member Retention

Your gym member experience is a key part of your retention strategy. A gym challenge is a useful tool to engage and motivate members, both of which promote member retention. Member retention is an ongoing battle. However, showing progress, increasing motivation, and building a community, can be a useful member retention strategy.

4. It Helps Community Thrive

Building a community, both online and offline, contributes to the overall member experience. A great sense of community can do wonders for attracting new members and promoting member retention.

Looking to build your own loyal fitness community?

You Can Find the Full eBook Here

The Customer
Engagement Playbook
for Your Fitness
Business

Discover more

The Core Elements of Your Gym Challenge

Although you can get lots of different challenges, they all contain the same elements. The main components of a gym challenge are:

Goal – what is the primary aim of the challenge?
How – how will your members achieve the goal?
End date – how long do members have to achieve their goal?
Encouragement – how do you plan on keeping members motivated throughout the challenge?

When it comes to gym challenges you can have something very simple or create a more complex challenge. The best option depends on your target customers and the information you have on them.

11 Gym Challenge Ideas Your Members Will Love

Monthly gym challenges can give your members a goal to work towards and motivation to keep going. As challenges work for various fitness abilities, it can be an inclusive way for members to compete with each other. To get you started, here are eleven gym challenge ideas you can implement in your fitness business at any time of the year.

1. Running Challenge

With a running challenge, start by setting a realistic goal for members. This could be 40 miles in 40 days. It’s down to your members to set their pace and decide how they want to collect those miles. Whether that’s shorter runs more often, or longer runs over a few weeks, it’s up to them. You can use apps like Strava and wearables such as Fitbit and Garmin to track miles. Members can then sync or manually log miles for the cardio challenge.

2. AMRAP Challenge

AMRAP stands for as many reps as possible or as many rounds as possible. You can do an AMRAP challenge in a range of workouts. This will be a muscle-shaking full-body challenge that will get your heart pumping. It’s a quick workout, so won’t take up a lot of time which is ideal for busy members. For an AMRAP challenge, you would select your reps or rounds. This could be burpees, treadmills, or weights. The challenge can include one exercise or a few different types. They usually take between 10-20 minutes. The AMRAP challenge would then last for a month or so. Each time a member does the challenge it sets a marker for themselves. Over time, they can look to improve and do more reps or rounds. It’s a simple challenge and is a great way to show member progress as well as set a marker for fitness. Don’t forget to include a warm-up in the challenge.

3. Calories Burned

As one of the top reasons for joining the gym is to lose weight, a calories-burned challenge targets several membership personas at once. It’s down to the individual how and when they work out. The only thing the challenge tracks is calories burned. You can track calories burned by logging exercise or using an activity tracker. You simply monitor progress, provide encouragement, and let members compete against one another. Remember to use photos to hold members accountable and show progress. There are various apps available that you can use to track calories burned. Members submit their numbers and work towards a joint goal.

4. Rowing Challenge

Indoor rowing continues to grow in popularity as more people are looking to work out effectively in a shorter period of time. For members with home rowing equipment and the opportunity to join your streams, this challenge works for both in-person and digital-only gym members. If you have members in your gym who particularly love rowing, then this challenge is a great option. You can set distance, pace, and time challenges that are suitable for a range of abilities.

5. Cycling Challenge

Like the running challenge, a cycling challenge covers miles traveled and speed. It may be more suitable for non-runners as it’s a lower-impact exercise and easier on the joints. Cycling challenges work for both in-person members and at-home members if you stream your indoor cycling classes. You also have the option to run cycling challenges outdoors and track distance traveled using Strava. This is a good way to motivate members to move more at home. How you run the challenge is down to you and the way your members interact with your brand.

6. Healthy Eating Challenge

Encourage members to join a healthy eating challenge, share recipes, and log food data. There are various apps you can use to log food data like Trainerize. Healthy eating challenges can be broad or narrow. For instance, a daily water challenge, eating five fruit or veg a day, or cooking one new healthy recipe a week. The most important part of a healthy eating challenge is that it’s realistic for your members and not too overwhelming. If you have to change everything about your diet in one go, it’s hard to sustain. But when you adopt one healthy habit at a time, members are more likely to stick to the challenge and see results.

7. Daily Yoga Challenge

Encourage members to join a daily yoga challenge. You have the option to use an already created challenge or come up with one on your own. For example, Yoga With Adriene has a free 30-day yoga challenge every January. You also have the option to create your own yoga challenge and stream daily videos.

8. 30-Day Fitness Challenge

The 30-day fitness challenge can include any type of exercise. Typically, the challenge includes one exercise that you do at varying amounts and intensities for 30 days. There will be rest days built into the challenge to make sure members don’t overdo it. Ideas for 30-day fitness challenges include sit-ups, push-ups, bodyweight exercises, squats, and HIIT exercises. You can create challenges that cater to a variety of abilities by adapting the exercise. For example, within a plank workout, you can have different positions, times, and goals depending on your fitness level.

9. Personal Best Challenge

A personal best challenge is ideal for showing members progress and celebrating achievement. Encouraging members to improve their chosen activities is a good way to keep them motivated and engaged. The personal best challenge can be for a range of activities like walking, running, lifting, and rowing. For this challenge, you would need to take a personal best from competitors. Then, set a timeline for how long members have to improve their personal best before testing again. Throughout this period you can offer personal trainer sessions, tips, and advice to improve their personal best.

10. Flexibility Challenge

The flexibility challenge primarily focuses on increasing flexibility throughout the body. This could include a set of daily stretches and workout routines for members to perform either at the gym or at home. By creating a challenge that supports both in-person and at-home members, it encourages participants to introduce more movement into their day. You have the option of creating a yoga challenge with a focus on increasing flexibility for a specific activity such as running or cycling.

11. Chair Fitness Challenge

This challenge is aimed at anyone who works at a desk. The chair fitness challenge encourages members to move while at their desks. Sitting for long periods of time can create tightness in the body, shoulders, and neck. By running a chair fitness challenge, it can help to counteract the effects of sitting all day, ease stress, and promote overall well-being in your members. By adding value to your members in other areas of their life, your brand can remain fresh in their minds.

How ABC Glofox Can Help You Track Gym Challenges

You can create the best gym challenge in the world, but if you can’t track your member progress or message them effectively, then there’s not much point in doing the challenges in the first place.

The ABC Glofox Platform can help you track: