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Group Exercise Thrives at Club Towers Driving Timetable Changes

2 February 2018

(by Katy Thomas – Fitness Manager at Club Towers)

The message that Group Exercise is highly beneficial in terms of both overall health and sustaining the motivation to train has obviously got through to our members at Club Towers. Participation has grown substantially since we opened, not only because we have more members now, but also because our members are participating in a wider range of classes.

 

As we grow, we are continuing to add more classes to cope with demand, and the latest timetable release this month has been designed to address some of the bottlenecks that we are seeing. One of the big issues that we face is that our holistic classes (yoga, pilates and body balance) have been far more popular than we anticipated at our opening, and we have been playing “catch-up” ever since. There is a lack of good yoga and pilates instructors, and getting additional classes laid on at times that will appeal to our members has proven to be difficult. Even though instructors are normally keen to work at Club Towers, they often have existing commitments elsewhere. We are also reluctant to use instructors if we are not confident they will meet our requirements in terms of quality.

 

The main changes to the timetable in this February release are as follows:

 

  • The addition of seven holistic classes (4 x Yoga, 1 x Pilates and 2 x Body Balance). The reason we have added more Yoga than Pilates is primarily due to the demand we have seen and instructor availability as described above. These additional classes will see us bring in Adele as a permanent addition to our instructor team.

 

  • We are also trialing an increase in capacity of two of Hannah’s Yoga classes from 20 to 25 as her style of teaching requires less mat and floor space. Please do let us have feedback on this – does it work OK when the class has 25?

 

  • The addition of a ‘daytime’ Group Cycle class at a prime time with a non-cyclist instructor in order that our members get a varied cycle experience to suit all participants. This will be on a Monday at 15am with Alix.

 

  • The addition of two beginner Group Cycle classes for a 4-week period only to allow our newer (and existing) members to try a less intense GC session first. We received quite a few requests for this so again please let us know whether it works.

 

  • The addition of a second weekend Body Pump class on a Sunday.

 

  • The addition of a Tuesday morning Gym Floor Workout, meaning we now offer at least one per day. We are also increasing capacity from 8 to 10 as the gym floor workouts have become very popular recently and our space can easily cope with ten.

 

  • The departure of Emma to Australia sadly means that we have to lose two CXworx classes from the timetable. However there are usually spaces on the other five CXWorx classes and we will review the number again as demand requires. One of the CXWorx slots has been replaced by the Sunday Body Pump class mentioned above.

 

  • We have been asked to rename our “50+” class as it put off some people who had not yet reached the magic half century. So we have renamed it “Gently Active”. The class remains identical.

 

There are a few other minor changes made to ensure the timetable works for our instructors and (hopefully) better for our members. We realise that we can never please everyone with all of the changes, and if your regular class has disappeared or moved, then you will be disappointed. However, we hope you will recognise that the overall direction of travel is a good one.

 

We now run over 100 classes per week, including 29 holistic classes of various types. This is by far the biggest holistic programme within the region.  We also run seven different Les Mills programs which again is the biggest Les Mills offering in our area. From a personal point as this is my main background, I’m really pleased to see these classes increase in attendance and I am looking forward to growing awareness to the benefits of these classes too. However, we are not complacent and realise that there are still some areas where we need to add capacity. We continue to keep our Group Exercise programme under review and always consider member feedback when we are making our decisions.

 

Many thanks for your support during the busy month of January, when I know many of you have been frustrated by the lack of places on our holistic programme.  We are hopeful that the above changes will ease the situation as we head into February and March, but will be keeping a very close eye on those waiting lists.

 

The new timetable is available from Monday, 5th February 2018 and can be viewed here.

 

 

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