Joining a gym and knowing how to use one are two entirely different things.
By Erin Phelan
Fitness Industry Council of Canada
Every September and January, thousands of beginners walk through the doors of Canadian fitness facilities.
Some haven’t exercised in years. Some have never belonged to a gym. Others have heard the growing conversation about strength, longevity and healthspan and decided it’s finally time to do something.
That should be an enormous opportunity for our industry.
But getting someone to join is only the beginning.
Today, walk through your facility pretending you’ve never exercised before. Would you know where to start?
You see a beautifully equipped strength floor. A beginner may see 40 machines they don’t know how to adjust. You see a functional training zone. They see TRX, sleds and kettlebells they don’t know how to use.
We forget how much assumed knowledge exists inside a fitness facility: seat positions, pins, weight selection, sets, reps, rest periods, cable attachments and bench adjustments.
There can be a steep learning curve — and if we don’t show people what to do, they can feel defeated before they start.
That’s not a motivation problem. It’s a confidence problem.
And fitness businesses can solve it.
In 2025, Impact Canada and the Public Health Agency of Canada surveyed 2,265 Canadian adults and found that 50% planned to exercise more over the following 12 months. Yet 47% identified motivation as a barrier to exercising more.
Clearly, motivation alone isn’t enough.
So how do we take that good intention — and that new membership this September — and help someone become a confident, lifelong exerciser?
1. Give Beginners a Pathway
Don’t give a beginner an entire gym. Give them somewhere to start.
Identify six to eight easy-to-learn pieces of equipment that create a simple full-body workout. Label the route. Put it in your app. Add QR codes showing how to adjust each machine.
Call it the Beginner Strength Circuit, Start Here Circuit or First 30 Days Circuit.
The goal isn’t to keep people there forever. It’s to create competence, confidence and self-efficacy.
An Ipsos survey found that 40% of Canadians surveyed found working out at a gym intimidating. Among those who felt intimidated, one-third said part of the problem was that they didn’t know what they were doing.
Let’s show them, shall we?
2. Replace the Vanilla Orientation with a Pumpkin Spice On-Ramp
Sure, a 45-minute facility orientation is useful. But it’s probably not enough.
Consider inviting every new member to a complimentary four-week beginner On-Ramp.
Week one: learn the facility and complete a beginner circuit. Week two: introduce strength-training concepts and movement patterns. Week three: teach members to build a simple workout. Week four: celebrate progress and answer the most important question:
What do I do next?
That might mean group fitness, small-group training, personal training or another four-week strength plan.
The goal isn’t to create dependency on a trainer. It’s to foster independence and confidence — with community as a pretty valuable by-product.
Which leads us to…
3. Help Beginners Meet Other Beginners
A new member doesn’t only need to learn where the leg press is. They need to feel that they belong.
Run beginner programs as cohorts. Introduce people. Create a beginner walking or running group. Host a Bring-a-Beginner workout. Give people opportunities to see familiar faces when they return.
The Ipsos research offers an important clue: among Canadians who felt intimidated by gyms, more than half said going with a friend would help, while 30% said getting to know people at the gym would make it less intimidating.
Community isn’t an extra. For some beginners, it’s the missing piece of a puzzle they’ve been trying to solve on their own.
Many of these “newbies” have a PhD in starting again and again.
Let’s help make this the last time they have to start over.
4. Celebrate Showing Up
Fitness businesses are very good at celebrating transformations.
Beginners need us to celebrate beginnings.
The first workout. The fourth visit. The first strength session. The first class. The first time they add weight to an exercise.
Consider a Your First 8 challenge: eight visits during the first 30 days.
But don’t make the prize the point. Research involving 690 new gym members found that modest incentives produced only small increases in attendance and didn’t create lasting attendance patterns once the incentives disappeared.
Instead, use those eight visits to build competence, connection and routine.
Have a staff member learn their name. Give them a First 8 passport and stamp each visit, with a small reward at the end. Invite them to a beginner session. Introduce them to another member. At visit eight, spend five minutes mapping out what comes next.
Make each visit easier, more familiar and more likely to happen again.
Until the story they tell themselves begins to change:
I am becoming someone who goes to the gym.
5. Watch for the Disappearing Beginner
Don’t wait until someone clicks Cancel Membership to begin your retention strategy.
The same study of new gym members found that people expected to attend about three times per week. Actual attendance started closer to twice per week and declined toward once per week by the end of the second month.
That decline should be visible to your business.
Flag beginners who haven’t visited within seven days, have visited only once in their first two weeks or disappear for 10 consecutive days.
Then reach out.
Not: “We noticed you haven’t been using your membership.”
Try: “Just checking in. Sarah is running a 30-minute beginner strength session Thursday at 6:30. We’d love to have you join us.”
The difference matters. No judgement. Reach out with care.
Retention starts with making people feel wanted back, not guilty for being away.
Final Thoughts
The healthspan conversation is bringing new people toward our industry. But many won’t arrive knowing gym culture.
They may arrive at 45. Or 55. Or 70.
They may have never touched a barbell. And that’s okay.
Our job isn’t simply to sell them access to equipment.
Our job is to give them a pathway into exercise.
Imagine if every beginner who walked into a Canadian fitness facility this September received four things:
- A person who knows their name.
- A simple plan they understand.
- A group where they belong.
- A reason to come back tomorrow.
That may be a much more powerful retention strategy than another discounted membership.
And it might be how our industry turns more beginners into lifelong exercisers.
Fitness Industry Council of Canada (FIC) is the not-for profit trade association that represents the voice of fitness facility operators across Canada. Representing more than 6,000 facilities with more than six-million members nationwide, FIC pursues a legislative agenda in the hope of bettering the fitness industry for both consumers and operators. FIC aims to work with both industry and government to improve the health and physical activity levels of Canadians.
