Watch your club community thrive with Myzone challenges

Challenges – they provide accountability, structure to a goal, and most importantly they make achieving a target fun! Involving your clients in an all-inclusive group challenge can shake up their training and help keep them motivated.  

Robbie Linsell, owner of Paragon Fitness Studio in Bishops Stortford, runs regular challenges to engage his members and keep them connected to the club - he shares how he successfully does this below.

Make challenges part of the club experience

“We run challenges every few months. Our clients love taking part because they encourage them to work harder and earn more MEPs.”

All clients at the group training studio receive a Myzone belt as part of their membership, really integrating the software into the fabric of the club. The heart rate monitor is a perfect workout companion for the club’s key demographic, says Robbie.

“Eighty per cent of our members are women over the age of 40, who are here to get fit, lose weight and feel better about themselves. Myzone gives us great visual feedback into how hard our clients are working so we know when to make adjustments to their training to help them get results.”

The challenges support this by providing regular extra incentives, and the ease of setting them up means Robbie and the team can do so hassle free.

Team up to build community

Robbie is fan of teamwork. In some challenges, he’ll pair clients up so that the big MEP earners are partnered with the lower scorers for a more evenly matched event.

“This works really well with new joiners who tend to crank out high MEPs because they’re not so fit. Partnering them up with an existing member helps them make friends and feel part of the community, which all helps with motivation and retention.”

Usually though, Robbie puts clients into teams based on the sessions they regularly attend to encourage some healthy competition in the studio.

There are 56 people taking part in the current challenge. The teams include the Alarm Clocks from the 6am class, the Super Sevens from the 7am session and the Coffee Crew – the 9.15am class which always meets for a coffee after their workout. The Noisy Gang – made up of clients from the 8.15am session who are also the loudest class in the club – have their sights set on the prize after winning the last challenge.

Vary the challenges to keep engagement high

“Some people can earn hundreds of MEPs in the grey zone by walking for hours, so you need to be clear about which zones you are going to focus on in your challenge,” says Robbie.

To encourage all members to take part, he’ll also run dual challenges - say Blue MEPs and above alongside a Green or Yellow Zone challenge with guaranteed entry into a prize raffle for everyone who hits 1,300 MEPs. It’s all about making the challenges as inclusive as possible.

“People get discouraged if they fall too far behind and they give up, so sometimes shorter challenges lasting a week or two work best.”

Set a challenge and watch your community thrive

“I’d recommend the Myzone challenges to anyone wo wants more interaction with their clients. They have definitely helped to build community in our studio. They create lots of banter on the Myzone app and the winning teams often go out for a drink to celebrate their success. We will always run challenges at Paragon Fitness – they keep our clients involved and they love them.”

To learn more about Paragon Fitness Studio, visit http://paragonfitness.co.uk, and to learn more about how Myzone can support your club engage members through challenges speak to a team member today info@myzone.org