Soapbox Readers,
If you want to understand where the fitness industry is going next, read this.
Casey Conrad has spent more than 35 years helping clubs and studios translate trends into sustainable revenue — not fads, not hype, but strategic, long-term growth. She has watched adoption cycles come and go, and she knows how to read the signals before they become headlines.
In this powerful piece, Casey doesn’t just talk about recovery, wellness, or longevity. She breaks down what the timing of recovery adoption is really telling us about the next phase of our industry.
Recovery was Phase One.
Wellness and longevity are Phase Two. And how your club adopted recovery may already be predicting how you’ll compete over the next five years.
This article is thoughtful. Strategic. Grounded in real-world operator experience. Casey connects the dots between early adopters, fast followers, and late movers — and explains why personalization, ongoing engagement, and relevance between workouts are quickly becoming the new competitive battleground.
If you care about retention, differentiation, lifetime value, and staying relevant in your members’ lives — this is essential reading.
The signals were there years ago.
The timing is now!
“The need is great and so are the opportunities to make a difference.” – Paul Newman
– John & Shannel
What the Wellness Adoption Timeline Is Really Telling the Fitness Industry
In 2018, I wrote an article in Club Insider titled “Is the Wellness Revolution Finally Here?” At the time, the question felt provocative. To many operators, wellness inside a health club sounded premature, experimental, or even off‑brand. Recovery modalities like cryotherapy, light therapy, hydrotherapy, and compression were not mainstream. DNA testing inside clubs was non‑existent. The idea that fitness facilities might move beyond workouts and into recovery and wellness sounded like something reserved for the distant future.
Fast forward to today—and that future has arrived. Recovery is no longer a fringe offering; it has become standard across U.S. health clubs. The more interesting story is no longer if wellness belongs in fitness, but what the timing of adoption tells us about where the industry is going next.
Why Adoption Timing Matters More Than Amenities
When operators look at trends, they often focus on what is being added—new equipment, new classes, new services. But history shows that the timing of adoption is far more revealing than the amenities themselves. Innovation in fitness has always followed a familiar curve:
- Early adopters move before demand is obvious.
- Fast followers act once the value is validated.
- Late adopters move when the market makes inaction uncomfortable.
Recovery followed this exact pattern. Some operators integrated recovery well before 2020, long before stress, sleep, and burnout became daily headlines. Others followed quickly in the 2021–2023 window as member expectations shifted post‑pandemic. A third wave is still arriving now, often bundling recovery into memberships as a retention play rather than a strategic pillar.
The critical insight is this: how an operator adopted recovery is now predicting how they will approach wellness and longevity.
Recovery Was Phase One. Wellness and Longevity Are Phase Two
Recovery solved immediate problems for clubs: member retention, increased length of stay, differentiation beyond equipment, and appeal to aging demographics. And it worked. But recovery alone does not fundamentally redefine a club’s role in a member’s life.
Recovery helps people feel better. It does not necessarily help them get healthier.
That’s where we are now seeing a second, more consequential shift. A small but growing number of operators are moving beyond recovery into wellness and longevity offerings, including:
- Health and biomarker testing
- Personalized wellness programs
- Performance and longevity clinics
- Ongoing health optimization support
This isn’t about adding another amenity. It’s about changing the relationship between the club and the member. The club stops being a place someone visits three times a week and starts becoming part of their long‑term health strategy.
The Industry Signals Were There Years Ago
What’s interesting is that none of this appeared overnight. Back in 2018, in that Club Insider article, I pointed to several signals already emerging:
- Increased consumer interest in self‑care over sick care
- Growing acceptance of personalized health data
- Rising demand for recovery and stress reduction
- Clubs experimenting with wellness modalities as revenue drivers
At the time, these were seen by many as “nice ideas” or “future concepts.” But they were signals—early indicators of a larger structural shift. The market simply hadn’t caught up yet.
Today, those same concepts are no longer speculative. They are observable through capital investment by major chains, dedicated recovery and wellness spaces, expanded language around longevity and optimization, and longer‑term member engagement and retention strategies. The lesson for operators is not that early adopters were “right”—it’s that signals deserve attention, even when the timing feels uncomfortable.
What This Means for Smaller, Independent Owner‑Operators
Large chains have obvious advantages when adopting new concepts: capital, scale, and tolerance for experimentation. But that does not mean independent or owner‑operated clubs are doomed to follow. In many ways, smaller operators are better positioned—if they think strategically.
The biggest mistake owner‑operators make is assuming they need to copy what the largest brands are doing. They don’t. They need to understand why those brands are moving. The trend is not toward more equipment. The trend is toward greater relevance in members’ lives.
Wellness and longevity succeed when they do multiple things:
- Create ongoing conversations, not just visits.
- Support members outside traditional gym offerings.
- Offer personalization without becoming medical.
This can be achieved at many levels: through education, assessment, coaching, recovery, partnerships, and programming. The opportunity isn’t about being first. It’s about being intentional.
The Quiet Shift Toward Personalization and Ongoing Engagement
One of the biggest changes happening inside health clubs today is easy to miss because it doesn’t show up on the gym floor. It’s the shift from one‑off experiences to ongoing member engagement.
As wellness and longevity offerings expand, clubs are moving away from:
- Generic programming → personalized pathways
- One‑size‑fits‑all memberships → individualized member experiences
- “See you next workout” relationships → ongoing touchpoints and follow‑up
That’s a big shift. Health clubs are no longer just competing with the gym down the street; they’re competing in the broader wellness and self‑care space, whether they planned to or not. If you don’t believe that, take some time to evaluate how many wellness and recovery businesses are popping up in your area. These can be stand‑alone concepts or add‑ons to other industries, such as chiropractic. It’s happening.
What is critically important here is how this shift changes the way clubs have to think about operational strategy. Staffing becomes more educational. Technology tracks health progress, not just body composition. Membership becomes much more about long‑term value versus a simple monthly dues transaction.
The clubs that win won’t be the ones with the most recovery equipment. They’ll be the ones that stay relevant in a member’s life between workouts, not just during them.
What the Next Five Years Will Likely Bring
Looking at adoption patterns today, several outcomes feel increasingly likely:
- Recovery becomes assumed. Members won’t ask if you offer recovery—they’ll ask which kind.
- Wellness drives differentiation. Not all clubs will go here, but those that do will stand out sharply.
- Longevity will stop sounding medical and start sounding like something people actually want: aging well, staying strong, and feeling good longer.
- Personalization reduces price pressure. Relevance beats discounts.
- Late adopters feel compressed. Those who wait won’t have time to experiment; they’ll be forced to react.
None of this replaces the core of our industry offerings—strength, cardio, or group exercise. Those remain foundational. But they are no longer enough on their own to maximize success.
A Final Perspective
The wellness and recovery conversation didn’t start yesterday. For those paying attention, the signals have been visible for years, long before the market fully embraced them. What’s changed is not the idea; it’s the timing.
Recovery has proven its value. Wellness has moved into the mainstream. Longevity is emerging as the next competitive frontier.
The question for fitness operators is not whether these shifts will continue. It’s how intentionally they choose to evolve. Those who treat wellness as a strategic extension of their mission will lead. Those who treat it as a trend will chase.
The operators who integrate wellness as part of their core offerings, not just something “nice” to offer, will be the ones maximizing lifetime value of existing members, and adding new-to-the market participants.
*The above grid is for reference only and not intended to encompass all fitness organizations and their efforts in the wellness and recovery sector.
Casey Conrad is a 35-year veteran consultant in the health & fitness industry. She has published 10 books, including the widely adopted Selling Fitness: The Complete Guide to Selling Health Club Memberships, which has sold more than 30,000 copies and is translated into multiple languages. Her most recent book, Make Yourself Healthy Again, is consumer-focused, teaching the principles of natural healing and recovery with energetic modalities. Her books can be found on Amazon. Casey can be reached at Casey@CaseyConrad.com or by phone at 401-932-9407.
Innovative Solutions for Fitness and Recreation Organizations
The Power of Moments by Chip and Dan Heath is one of those books that puts words and structure around something many of us already feel. Experiences are not remembered evenly. People remember moments. Peaks. Transitions. Moments of recognition. Moments when something went wrong and was handled well.
Reading this book reinforced how important intentional moments are in organizations. Customers, members, patrons, and guests do not remember every interaction. They remember how you made them feel at key points in their journey. The Warm Welcome when they first arrive. The first win when they feel successful or confident. A concern handled through Owning Questions or Service Recovery. And the Fond Farewell that leaves them feeling appreciated and eager to return.
When we operated our facilities, we were very intentional about designing these moments. We trained how we greeted people. We coached staff to pause and engage when the world stopped. We focused on how issues were resolved and how people were sent off at the end of their visit. These moments did not happen by accident. They were practiced, reinforced, and expected.
As you think about your own organization, it is worth asking a few simple questions. Where are the moments that matter most for your customers? Which ones are being intentionally designed, and which ones are left to chance? Are there points in the journey where a small shift in behavior could create a much stronger memory?
The biggest takeaway from this book is simple. You do not need to create extraordinary experiences all the time. You need to be intentional at the right times. When organizations do that well, loyalty grows, stories get shared, and experiences are remembered. That is the real power of moments.
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Newsletter edited and produced by Megan Shellman-Rickard, Simple Synergy Consulting. Discover what our company can do for your organization: https://www.simplesynergyconsulting.com/