Gym Coworking: Health and Fitness Hybrid Workspaces

In this article, we are going to discuss another hitting coworking business trend which is gym coworking. Continue reading and you will get to know why is it growing popularity, what unbeatable benefits does it bring workspace members, and what amenities do best sport and wellness coworking centers offer.

 

It's Trendy to Stay Fit

Keeping our bodies toned improves the quality of our life. Nobody will argue that. There is no lack of gyms cram-packed with classes and training to meet different wellness tastes and requirements.

According to Fitness For Weightloss the average gym member goes to the gym twice a week.

In the United States, around 45 million adults have a gym membership, while in the UK 4.5 million adults have a membership.

~ realbuzz.com

It's cool to go to a gym, sounds like you are an active person following healthy lifestyle principles. Some people even tend to tell lies about their workout sessions because they are ashamed or feel guilty for not attending them.

However, if you don't go to the gym regularly, this is probably because it's difficult to find a free slot for exercise in your business schedule. In practice, it takes a couple of hours to drive to the gym, warm up, exercise, cool down, take a shower, and return to the office. The affair will kick you out of your business loop for sure.

Is there any solution? I believe hybrid gym coworkings are aimed to address not only the above time management issue but many others as well.

 

The Essence of Gym Coworking Workspace

Gym coworking is a workspace with a top-notch gym and wellness facilities on site. These innovative centers aiming to make members healthy and efficient appear here and there because of the upwards rocketing popularity of coworking spaces. The number of people that earn their living in coworking spaces around the globe is increasing, especially in the post-COVID-19 economic stagnation environment.

In the meanwhile, those shared economy centers pop up like mushrooms heating up the competition. You need to approach consumers with a non-trivial proposition to win their hearts and separate yourself as a brand.

Here is where specialization comes in and we observe:

• female-focused workspaces
• rural coworkings
• gym coworkigs, etc.

Gym coworking spaces send traditional commute between workplace and gym to the past. Fitness brands like Life Time and Brooklyn Boulders fuse fitness, wellness, and coworking.

By the way, well-established coworking brands, like WeWork also admit the increased level of stress among businessmen and offer weekly health and fitness activities for members to work out, connect, and get rid of anxiety.

 

What's There for Members In Gym Coworking

Well, sport helps us fight a heap of problems, but let's take a look at gym coworking phenomenon, how can it benefit members?

• Reduced stress
• Increased memory capacity
• Greater concentration
• Higher mental stamina
• Boosted creativity

• Cheerful atmosphere. As a rule, gym coworking centers are full of natural light with their huge floor-to-ceiling windows. You will hear some inoffensive music in the background that tunes you to a positive mood. From time to time, your ear may catch bass echo from Zumba class or a thud of weights crashing to the ground, which may be considered a gym aspect of your coworking. If you feel like wearing a t-shirt, go ahead, nobody cares as other members are also wearing t-shirts.
• One-stop-shop to work and work out. Working at a coworking gym doesn't literally mean members try to concentrate among the body-building equipment. They can rent an office space if they need it, book a meeting room, take a call at a skype room, or take a seat at one of the common areas with a laptop.
• Focus on health and wellness. Gym coworking members can stick to their healthy diet during the day ordering protein smoothies and energy grain bowls from the cafe. Nobody will roll their eyes when they opt for the vegan option of a meal. Locker rooms are equipped with hot tubs, which helps members to feel clean and fresh no matter how active they are.
• Balance life and work. Some days we are less productive than usual. This happens due to many reasons. Modern gadgets and technology provide a perfect connection and possibilities for remote work. As we are never technically off the clock, the temptation to check out the project on weekend, answer the call at family dinner, and read the email at kid's baseball game is irresistible. When you work all the time and miss important family events, this leads to burnout. You won't feel any satisfaction looking at your results, only fatigue. However, when you work from gym coworking, you don't need to force yourself to string together sentences that don't come. You just quit staring at a blank screen and hit the weight room of your favorite gym located in the same building. Then you come back in 45 minutes with a completely refreshed, clean, and clear mind💪.
• Wellness program affordable for everyone. Perks like health insurance, fitness, and wellness centers sponsored by the employer were available in big corporations only. Now even a startup renting workstations at gym coworking can pamper employees with benefits like these (wellness component) without additional expenses.
• Increased productivity. Sometimes workdays are smooth and fly as a moment. But some workdays are really challenging when everything goes wrong. You feel stressed, emotionally exhausted, and unable to change the situation. The best advice here is to change quickly and get all aggression out. You can opt for stretching or sauna if you don't feel enough energy for a work out session. Anyway, you will feel better, especially if you train your body and keep it active every day. Your brain also starts to perform better, it resists the stress and finds unconventional solutions easier.
• Supportive community. The community of like-minded people is something freelancers and entrepreneurs come for. It's way easier to break the ice and start networking and communication at a gym coworking. At first, you are sweating and encouraging each other during the workout session (most of the people would love to have a companion at sports training such as a triathlon competition), then you continue networking drinking smoothie at the coworking cafe. Chances are that you will end up as friends and maybe even business partners sharing healthy lifestyle philosophy, and interested in wellness.

As you see, gym coworking provides a variety of benefits to its members including increased motivation, easy networking and interaction opportunities, nice companionship, improved work-life balance, organization, and so on.

One more advantage of the gym coworking that is worth mentioning here before we will pass to wellness hubs examples, is that you don't really need to struggle to build a tight-knit community at this type of a workspace. It's safe to say that the gym coworking community nurtures and cultivates itself. Moreover, it manages and expends itself fed by studio classes and workout solutions provided by you.

 

Top Sport & Wellness Coworking Spaces

Here I compiled the most inspiring gym coworking spaces where members can effectively combine work and workout.

 

The Metropolis FIT Collective

This hybrid workspace is located in Manhattan. It welcomes health and fitness professionals, workout enthusiasts, in a word, all wellness entrepreneurs looking for space to work and train.

Here are some of the benefits The Metropolis FIT Collective offers its members:

• 24/7 access to a clean, fully equipped space for entrepreneurial activities such as training, virtual classes, photo and video shoots, and tackling own workouts.
• No revenue sharing and negotiating with gyms.
• An ability to share a single membership with up to 3 people to make it even more cost-efficient.
• Support and inspiration from other entrepreneurs and fitness professionals within the community.

One more cool thing about The Metropolis FIT Collective is that it is enhanced with member-first workspace technology that literally puts the center into their pockets. I mean members can make reservations, read the latest news, apply for new perks and services, etc. right from their smartphones.

 

EQUINOX

Equinox is a well-known luxury lifestyle brand that has partnered with workspace provider Industrious to create a coworking space in Hudson Yards, New York, which is close to the company’s gyms. This synergy demonstrates a shared economy model transformation where real estate, fitness, and hospitality industries merge the best of their products to deliver customers a completely new experience.

The design of 71 private offices and common areas aimed to provide a premium member experience led by Matt Bosserman design studio deserves a special mention.

• Large communal tables with blue-velvet chairs
• Banquette seating areas
• Modular couches
• Conference rooms and offices with premier acoustical solutions
• Spiral metal staircase haloed by a custom-made chandelier
• Private offices with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the Hudson River and Thomas Heatherwick's Vessel sculpture.

This list of "A" class design solutions can be continued, however, I am sure you are already enchanted with the royal atmosphere of this Equinox Industrious project.

 

Brooklyn Boulders Queensbridge

Brooklyn Boulders Queensbridge is a hybrid of workspace and rock climbing facility hosting dynamic creative community. It is located in Long Island City, NY. Coworking gym welcomes entrepreneurs interested in rock climbing, sport, health, and fitness.

It offers 25,000 square feet of space dedicated to providing a fun and challenging fitness experience for people of all ages and experience levels.

Some of the Brooklyn Boulders gym coworking amenities are:

• High-speed WiFi
• Outdoor terrace
• Lounge / Chill-out area
• Yoga studio
• Events
• Printer
• Computers (PCs), and more

 

NOOK

Nook is a coworking space focused on sport, fitness, and wellness located in Dubai. They have partnered with the world’s leading free zone, DMCC, to provide members subsidized company licensing focused on sports, health, and wellness startups. This is really helpful as greenhorn entrepreneurs save on set up getting a trade license at a discounted fee. NOOK coworking space can issue a commercial office lease for those who want to start small. The inhouse team will help you get the right license for your business, and you will be able to learn from your fellow entrepreneurs.

Nook wellness-centered workspace offers its members an on-site gym and a resource for PT or group sessions along with multiple standard coworking amenities:

• Meeting rooms
• Office equipment
• WiFi
• Personal lockers
• Parking
• Coffee, tea, and water, etc.

 

FINNS Recreation Club

Finns Coworking Hub is located on Bali and is a perfect place for a short term workation or long term stay. This spacious workspace offers its members access to plenty of facilities for work, recreation, sport, and wellness.

Here are some of them:

• Meeting rooms
• Library
• Seminars & networking events
• Fully equipped gym
• Lap pool
• Tennis center
• Ten-pin bowling
• Beach
• Waterpark, and more.

Don't you think that Finns Recreation Club looks like an ideal destination for a digital nomad?

 

Life Time Work

Life Time Work spaces combine the coworking concept with a world-class health club experience. The network has multiple branches at Bridgewater, NJ, Edina, MN, St. Louis Park, MN, Houston, TX, Ardmore, PA, and more.

Supporting corporate philosophy, Life Time Work memberships include access to all 140+ Life Time luxury health clubs across the U.S. and Canada with all their cutting-edge fitness equipment, innovative studio classes, locker rooms with deluxe amenities, child center, LifeCafe® and LifeSpa.

Apart from wellness facilities, Life Time Work members can enjoy smart workspace design, luxury amenities, and vibrant community of the coworking part of this combo. Each Life Time Work location is designed to support every aspect of a healthy workday with its

• Ergonomic furnishings
• Private phone rooms
• Responsive tech support
• Fresh coffee and healthy snacks
• Eco-friendly practices
• Monthly member events

 

Wind Up

In this article, we have discussed one of the latest coworking business trends. Though, gym coworking is sooner a combination of two global trends, which are coworking communities and healthy lifestyle.

Sport and fitness workspaces may be oriented to different audiences. Some work like health and wellness business incubators, others help freelancers and teams find work-life balance or gather communities of people interested in a particular activity or lifestyle philosophy.

I believe that hybrid workspaces are great solutions for both operators and members. Sports brands get a chance to grow their revenue while entrepreneurs start living a healthier = happier life with reduced stress level and higher energy charge.

The best thing is that if you want to incorporate a workspace and a gym (or vice versa), you even don't need to invest a lot of money. The partnership makes things easier😉. Gyms are already well-equipped to meet the requirements of a niche market. The only advice I dare to give you at this point is about your gym coworking technology. Opt for one with beautiful apps for members and you will win their love.