Fitness Subscriptions Stretch To Bring Personal Training Home

To help consumers access instruction and encouragement from fitness trainers, digital innovators are building platforms on the subscription business model. Yarden Tadmor’s aim in starting Livekick was to provide convenience, accountability and frequency. As Tadmor told PYMNTS in an interview, part of the convenience factor “is bringing down the cost.” Customers can access the platform from home – literally rolling out of bed and joining their trainers online in minutes.

Livekick delivers real-time personal training through video on devices ranging from phones to laptops and tablets, or streamed to a smart television. Users connect with real people as opposed to pre-recorded videos. They can use the platform for 30-minute sessions in homes, hotels, gyms or other locations. Tadmor noted the platform offers a high-intensity fitness program – he calls the sessions educational experiences “where you grow and learn.”

Livekick is onboarding yoga instructors and fitness coaches from South Africa, Germany, India and many other countries. Tadmor said the aim is to get the best coaches from around the world, “as long as they have hours on their calendar that have demand.” Trainers go through a rigorous training process for providing live, equipment-free workouts via video.

Customers sign up for the platform by answering a short questionnaire and sitting up a fitness profile with their height, gender and other basics the trainer needs to know. Next, they pick a plan with one, two or three weekly sessions with names like “rise,” “elite” and “warrior.” The first two weeks are free, which Tadmor noted that free trial is the main funnel. And Livekick is not alone in offering this feature: Seventy percent of top subscription plans offer a free trial, according to the PYMNTS Subscription Commerce Conversion Index.

Tadmor said most people pick a trainer based on whether they want fitness or yoga, and can also choose one coach for each discipline. Users can secure a weekly private class time, such as every Monday at 7 a.m. Once they finish the process, a calendar invite is delivered to their inboxes and also gets added to their calendar software.

For payments, Livekick accepts credit cards as well as Apple Pay, and soon plans to offer additional forms of payment.

The Online Fitness Market

Beyond Livekick, other digital fitness innovators are allowing consumers to tap into workouts and expert advice on the web. With the Charge Running app, for instance, users can see live runs and run along with other users. Trainers provide live feedback, such as telling a runner he is doing a great job at a nine-minute pace and that another runner is coming up behind him.

Users can download the company’s offering through the App Store. They can then log in with email and Facebook and automatically join a free two-week trial. Charge Running offers monthly or yearly subscription plans, and payments are made via the App Store. Consumers can also tap into the app’s offering more than once a day, as the platform has several live daily runs. It also offers Saturday races that encompass one-mile sprints, four-mile runs and 10Ks.

In another case, NEOU offers classes in several different areas ranging from barre to boxing. The subscription offering is available through several different channels like Roku, Apple TV Roku, Android and iOS, as well as the web. “It really is usable anywhere,” NEOU Co-founder Nathan Forster told PYMNTS in a November interview. The company also has a functioning New York City brick-and-mortar gym where instructors film content with actual customers engaging in classes.

From NEOU to Charge Running and Livekick, online platforms are connecting consumers with experts to help them get in their workouts on the go from anywhere with the help of digital technology.