The significant growth in group exercise is fantastic news for the industry. It ensures more employment opportunities for instructors and provides leisure operators with a wider range of options to engage and retain members.
The versatility of group exercise, and its increasing popularity, enables operators to expand their class timetables, providing a broader offering of classes for members of all ages and fitness levels.
Within the sector, we’ve anecdotally known there has been a growth in group exercise in recent years, but it’s the verification of this increase from the Sport England Active Lives research that’s likely to be a wake-up call for operators.
In such a competitive sector, having a high quality, varied group exercise offering can be a real differentiator for operators and increasingly it is what the market is demanding.
Along with having a strong class timetable, the quality of instructors has never been more important. Classes are only as good as the people that teach them, and we hope that these findings will reinforce the importance of employing well qualified instructors with good emotional intelligence, and then recognising and rewarding those that provide an outstanding service and keep members coming back week after week.
The EMD UK training academy offers a broad range of qualifications which provide instructors with industry-approved qualifications throughout their careers. With increased popularity in group exercise comes increased demand for instructors, and we’re proud to play a key part in helping instructors capitalise on the demand and pursue a lifelong career in the fitness industry, inspiring the people that they teach along the way.