Open Up to New Connectivity with OpenHub Consoles

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Watch for new equipment consoles from Core Health & Fitness, which will be offered in 2016 for use on cardio equipment from Star Trac, Stairmaster, Schwinn, and Nautilus, specific brands offered by SOFITCO. The family of new consoles, called OpenHub, delivers a suite of connectivity options to improve your members’ exercise experiences through entertainment, asset management, and game play. Plus, the consoles also allow members to connect to their personal fitness tracking devices.

Amazing connectivity and flexibility

You will be able to customize OpenHub in your choice of three configurations—with a 15” touch screen, with a 10” touch screen, or as an LCD version, according to Core Health & Fitness. And, the new consoles will be the most affordable ones to offer the range of connectivity for StairMaster and Star Trac. Continue reading →

5 Benefits of Keeping Your Fitness Equipment Fit

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Fitness equipment is the biggest class of capital assets (and possibly of hassles too) you’ll have to deal with when you’re operating a workout facility of any kind. Once you have the equipment in place you need to ensure that it stays in working order for as long as you need it with regular maintenance and upkeep.

“Out of Order” sends a bad message

To make best use of your facility you must keep all of your equipment up to date and working. When a large piece of equipment is “Out of Order,” it’s just a giant lump of metal sitting in the way and sending out bad vibes to everyone in the room.

Not only do you lose capacity when a treadmill, stair-stepper or elliptical machine goes down, you lose the square footage that it occupies. Your gym just got smaller like you doubled the hassle of the breakdown. Then, double it again just because it’s next to a mirrored wall and so it’s a virtual eyesore staring at your users as they work out. That’s the visual impact of non-functioning equipment on your workout space. Continue reading →

Why Your Municipal Fitness Facility is Vital to Your Community

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Your community’s fitness facility provides convenient, year-round fitness, health, and wellness opportunities for your constituents and neighbors at their local or regional park, recreation center, or other public facility. Your local citizens look to your facility for the best possible fitness solutions (and you look to stick to your municipality’s stringent budget parameters).

Also keep in mind that your local and regional park agencies have major, definitive economic impact, as well. Research from the National Recreation and Park Association’s Economic Impact Study conducted by the Center for Regional Analysis at George Mason University (GMU) in Virginia, “Shows that the nation’s local and regional parks are economic powerhouses in the U.S., creating nearly $140 billion in economic activity per year and supporting nearly 1 million jobs.”

For these reasons, your parks and your fitness facilities are significant parts of your community’s physical and financial health, well-being, and quality of life. The ongoing challenges most folks responsible for park fitness face are getting the community to realize the inherent connection between parks and wellness… and to keep people coming back to your center. Those connections will help keep funding coming in and people coming back to your facility.

Dealing with funding cuts and shortfalls Continue reading →

How a Medical Wellness Facility Can Keep Your Hospital Healthier

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According to the Harvard Business Review, “In health care, the days of business as usual are over…We must move away from a supply-driven health care system organized around what physicians do and toward a patient-centered system organized around what patients need. We must shift the focus from the volume and profitability of services provided—physician visits, hospitalizations, procedures, and tests—to the patient outcomes achieved.” That means hospitals and medical centers have to focus more on medical wellness and rehabilitation.

With today’s quality reporting measures and population health measures, such as weight, blood pressure, cholesterol and blood glucose, wellness is becoming a core competency. In fact medical wellness is now a basic strategy for thriving and staying competitive in the era of accountable care. It’s not just about measuring, but improving population health, experts said at an American College of Healthcare Executives’ annual congress.

Broadening your mission to include medical wellness

Creating (or enhancing) a facility at your hospital or medical center to one devoted to wellness should come from broadening your healthcare mission and reach. Your institution must become much more than just a place to treat sick people. Continue reading →

Keeping your Country Club Members Loyal With a Fitness Facility

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With so many fitness options vying for the attention of your members, it’s high time to provide a traditional fitness center as part of your country club activity choices. Or if you already have a few treadmills or a bike, you should seriously look at adding to your offerings and updating your facility. Truth is that if you don’t give your members what they’re looking for, they could abandon your club and join another one. Certainly, losing their loyalty is NOT what you want!

These days, a country club fitness facility is no longer an option to add “sometime in the distant future.” It’s a necessity that must be included with country club membership. Members are looking for one-stop convenience to meet their golfing, entertainment, and workout needs. They’re looking specifically for the same health club quality equipment they know and love when joining or renewing their country club membership, and will base their decision on the fitness facility amenities available to them.

Give members a “luxury” gym experience
Your members are looking for much more than the simple convenience of a fitness center at your country club. They want it to match the deluxe experience they have had at a great fitness resort or world-class health club. Continue reading →

7 Back-to-School Tips for College Rec Centers

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Kids are back on campus, meeting roommates, decorating their dorm rooms, and starting classes. It’s time for recreation center directors to examine their facilities and make sure they have the equipment students and staff want. It’s critical to select the right, dependable workout machines, from a company that understands the college/university fitness environment, to both add value to your facility and protect your investment.

Fitness centers…an essential part of campus life

Working out helps provide a balance for the demands and stresses of today’s college experience. Students, staff and instructors depend on campus fitness centers to stay healthy, active, and at their physical and mental best. They expect nothing less than deluxe health club-quality equipment in on-campus facilities, for use by people of all ages and abilities.

College students live hectic lives—between classes, clubs, socializing, jobs, and sleep, it can be easy for them to put fitness on the back burner. Rather than let that happen, a well-equipped recreational center at your university helps promote, inspire and instill the values of a healthy lifestyle for students and staff.

7 tips for a great college facility

Continue reading →

How to Strengthen Your Apartment or Condo Community with On-site Fitness

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There was a time when having an on-site fitness center gave your multi-family housing a distinct competitive advantage. Unfortunately, those days are gone. Today, most (if not all) of your competitors have fitness centers, and some might even be better than yours.

With healthy lifestyles and wellness concerns on the rise, Americans are more and more focused on finding a true “state-of-the-art” fitness facility right in their own building or community. The multihousing industry has been forced to raise the bar in terms of the fitness facilities they offer. If residents find value in the fitness offerings of their communities, they often will be willing to factor that into their monthly rent payments or condo fees.

If you manage or own a multi-family building or complex or are building or updating one, you have to focus on making your fitness facility one that residents and potential residents want, if you want to attract or keep tenants or buyers. Additionally, you serve a wide variety of residents—young and old, male and female, fit and not-so-fit. Each resident is unique and you have to meet those diverse needs, while keeping your budget and space constraints in mind.

Residents expect an up-to-date facility

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Attracting Employees to your Corporate Fitness Facility

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In the 21st century, employees expect more from their job. Providing your company with a corporate fitness center is a much-appreciated perk that also helps keep your staff fit, healthy, and less stressed. Plus, this sort of corporate benefit attracts and keeps great employees, who are on the job and not home sick.

However, it’s overly optimistic to think that your company can simply build a fitness facility at work and employees will show up to use it. It doesn’t happen that way.

First of all you have a very limited total audience of just a few thousand or few hundred employees. Then, an even smaller percentage will become active users. So, you need enticements to get and keep people coming to work out.

You need a strategy

Continue reading →