Gyms cash in on New Year resolutions

Karthik Kumar, a working professional in early 20s is now following a new regimen —  waking up at 5 am and hitting the gym for an hour — before getting ready for work. He says, “It is my New Year resolution to stay fit and healthy from this year. I realised that fitness was something that I had long neglected. It was only later that it hit me that fitness was to do with one’s overall well-being and goes much beyond just beefing up or being toned.” 

Many like Karthik have accelerated the business of fitness centres in the city by almost 50 per cent, in the last one week. Vikram Kumaresan, marketing manager, Talwalkars Inshape, Chennai, says, “The number of walk-ins has seen a 50 per cent surge. We also have several people coming in groups and there is fair balance of men and women in the age group of 25-60 years.” 

He says that the centre has been providing additional services for each of the packages to attract more crowd, rather than offering discounts. Similarly, at SLAM, that has a chain of fitness and lifestyle studios, the new registrations have picked up to almost 60 per cent, socially among their core group of students and young professionals in the 18-35 years. 

Ajit Sigamani, working partner, SLAM says, “Resolutions have a huge impact on our business. December tends to be a little dull due to lot of partying and holidays. But with January beginning, we have a large number and this tends to taper in another two to three weeks’ time as people’s resolve wanes.” 

For a relatively new concept like PedalBeat that promotes indoor cycling as a way of cardio exercise, there has been a considerable 10-15 per cent increase in enrolment. “We have women predominantly taking up these classes — as much as 65 per cent — and that has many mothers,” says Mukul Rangarajan, co-founder and CEO, PedalBeat.