Fitness5 Summer Fitness Challenges to Encourage Gym Engagement & Attendance
Fitness Inspiration Tech

5 Summer Fitness Challenges to Encourage Gym Engagement & Attendance

You may find your gym in a bit of a lull this time of year, as many people in the community are going on vacations or deciding to exercise outdoors instead of at the gym. Offering special fitness challenges during the summer is one way to entice people to attend the gym and engage in a health or fitness journey. See if any of these five options could work for your gym: 

1. 4-Week Mini-Goal Challenge

Women’s Health offers the idea of a four-week summer challenge where you work on a new mini goal each week. Each week follows the same routine, with each day having a certain focus: 

  1. Upper-body exercise 
  2. Lower-body exercise 
  3. Rest 
  4. Abs 
  5. Full-body exercise 
  6. Cross-training exercise 
  7. Rest 

Then, you have a unique mini goal for each week, which goes like this: 

  1. Learn the proper form for your exercises. 
  2. Add more reps of the exercises. 
  3. Increase the amount of weight, as long as you can maintain proper form. 
  4. Add another round to the routine. 

Of course, you can adapt this kind of routine to your own gym. 

2. Reach a Mile Goal

Try a challenge of striving for a mile goal over the course of the summer. One Summer Fitness Challenge encourages participants to walk or run 200 miles within the time span of the summer season. You could try something similar by encouraging members to go 200 miles on the treadmill, stationary bike or another method throughout the summer. Create a way to track progress, create a competition and share results. 

3. A Family-Friendly Challenge

You may have some members who are skipping the gym during the summer simply because their children are out of school for a few months. Consider family-friendly fitness challenges that include parents and children working together, as a way for parents to keep up with their exercise routines while bonding with their children at the same time. A good goal is to have the family pick a way to improve together, such as losing weight, improving flexibility or improving stamina week by week. Family members can work toward the same goal and encourage each other’s progress. 

4. Weight Loss Challenge

Of course, losing weight is a good challenge to offer gym members, as your customer base will always include people with this goal. A fitness challenge with this focus can encourage people to participate, as it has a set timespan and end goal, rather than a vague plan to visit the gym sometimes. Try a challenge to set custom weight loss goals for each person, and see who reaches their goal by the end. Include classes and methods for losing weight within your challenge, and provide a way to track progress and results.

5. Stress-Relief Challenge

The summer is an ideal time to take a break and find time for relaxation. This means a stress-relief and relaxation challenge is a great fit for this time of year. You could offer yoga and meditation classes, as well as methods for reducing stress from home. A good way to carry out this challenge is to have people complete certain steps each day or week, such as attending a yoga class one day, following a mindfulness session another day and taking a nature walk another day. Provide in-gym offerings, as well as from-home steps you communicate through email, your gym app or another method. 

Fitness challenges encourage members and people in the community to head to the gym and participate. Hopefully, these challenge ideas will boost your gym engagement and attendance this summer. Â