A fitness community can be built both in and outside the gym — as long as you have the right tools! In 2020 many fitness communities switched to a completely virtual model and some went hybrid, but everyone learned the importance of a flexible fitness model.
If you’re struggling to establish a vibrant virtual community, we can help! Your online community can be self-sustaining, but it’s important for the culture to be set by the leaders of your community. A strong community will last when the coaches and staff get involved. Some of the best practices for your coaches/staff are:
- Coaches/staff should interact with members on a daily basis, and we suggest that they give out five fist bumps (if you’re a SugarWOD user) and five comments a day.
- Be the example by logging your workouts and practicing what you preach.
- Check out your athlete participation stats (SugarWOD users can do that here), and reach out to those who haven’t been active.
Easily interact and engage
For an online community to succeed, it’s got to be easy and fun — for everyone. If you’re struggling to build engagement in your remote community, it may be because the platform you’re using is too complicated and difficult to use. While many gyms have used social media accounts and groups to connect their community, those platforms aren’t built specifically for gyms.
With SugarWOD, anyone can easily set up a virtual gym or community and start building and strengthening those relationships. Whether you’re a large fitness facility or just a few friends who like to work out, sharing workouts and engaging with friends on SugarWOD is easy.
SugarWOD works for gyms with in-person workouts by allowing people who attend different class times to connect, but it also can be used for gyms and communities that are completely virtual.
Read on to learn more about how SugarWOD can help you build your online fitness community.
Who can use SugarWOD?
Though our workout programming tools are best suited towards functional fitness-type workouts, you can create completely custom workouts! Check out how to create a customized workout in the video below.
For more help creating your workouts, visit our Programming 101 Video series here!
Not sure how to score your workout? Check out the Score types for workouts here.
Getting started is easy
- Sign Up in just a few easy steps. SugarWOD is FREE for the first 5 users in your gym. Check out our full pricing breakdown here.
- Add workouts to your calendar. You can choose to program your own custom workouts for your members or subscribe to daily workout programs from our partners in the SugarWOD Marketplace! These workout programs are automatically delivered to your SugarWOD calendar each week.
- Communicate with your members.
Customize your member experience
Not only does SugarWOD give you the ability to deliver workouts to your athletes, but you can also customize the experience to create a thriving, personal, and inclusive community! The Whiteboard is the hub of information and workouts for your athletes.
The Whiteboard has a bunch of cool features that help you keep your community strong. You can post announcements, feature athletes and members with a daily photo, share a video, and even change the colors so the in-app experience matches your brand!
Here are some helpful links to learn more about the Whiteboard features:
Check out our blog post on how to spread SugarWOD in your gym. Though this is geared towards physical gym locations, you may find some of it applicable to your virtual community!
Check out the entire SugarWOD Knowledge Base here.