3 Simple Ways to Increase Athlete Engagement at Your Box

As a box owner, you’re busy. From building relationships with your athletes to developing solid programming and handling the administrative tasks of owning a small business, you don’t have much extra time on your hands. Implementing box management software is a sure-fire way to help take time-consuming tasks off of your plate, so you can focus on the more rewarding aspects of owning a box.

While staying organized is typically the main goal of using a box management solution, it can also increase engagement among your athletes. Do you have athletes who frequently forget to check-in for class? Or do you have athletes who don’t keep track of their latest 1RM? Try implementing the following challenges at your box to help increase engagement, and ensure your athletes are using Zen Planner to its full potential.

WOD tracking challenge

Fran, Grace, Annie, Cindy, The Filthy 50… Do your athletes know their times for these popular WODs? If they’re not actively keeping a journal or using an app like SugarWOD, there’s a good chance they don’t. To ensure your members are tracking their performance for every WOD moving forward, create a WOD tracking challenge!

Create Memorable Gym Experiences with SugarWOD + Zen Planner. 

Set a period of time (one month works well) and program staple WODs throughout the month. Encourage your athletes to track each and every WOD. The winner could either be the athlete who tracked the most WODs or the athlete with the highest rep score or lowest time for all of the tracked WODs. By having athletes actively track their WOD results, they will:

• Familiarize themselves with the Member App and/or SugarWOD and develop a routine of tracking their results after each class
• Celebrate other athletes’ results (such as someone’s first WOD done as RX) by congratulating their friends through social commenting and liking features
• Have a baseline to compare future results to and measure progress overtime

Check-in challenge

When you have an excellent community at your box, your athletes will look forward to coming to class to catch up with their friends and participate in a great workout. We’ve all been guilty of this scenario (myself included): you arrive at the box, start chatting with friends and realize halfway through the WOD that you forgot to check-in.

Check-ins are important to you, as they help you keep track of monthly membership usage and keep an eye on athletes who haven’t been to class in a while. To make check-ins more of a routine for your athletes, create a check-in challenge at your box. Pick a specific time period (a month works well) and let your athletes know that you’ll be keeping track of who checks-in the most. There should be some sort of incentive for winning this challenge (a free month, branded gym swag or equipment like a jump rope, foam roller, grips, etc.). Check-in challenges are great because they:

• Make a habit out of checking-in as soon as athletes walk through the door
• Create excitement among athletes trying to win the challenge
• Help athletes realize they can attend more classes than they originally thought
• Encourage athletes to try other classes offered at your box (weightlifting, fit classes, yoga, etc.)
• Allow athletes to see how simply going more often leads to greater results
• Provide fun content to share on your social media accounts (be sure to keep athletes updated on the latest check-in standings at the end of every week!)

PR challenge

Similar to tracking WODs, it’s important that your athletes know their one-rep max for various lifts. Knowing this number off the top of their head makes it easier to pick proper weights for lifting WODs and helps better track their progress. SugarWOD makes it easy to track PRs so your members never have to flip through paper journals to locate them again. Host a PR challenge for your members one month. Since there will likely be several athletes who hit a PR in a given month, you can place all of their names in a jar for a prize drawing. To ensure your athletes are using Zen Planner/ SugarWOD, put a rule in place stating that PRs will only be considered if they’ve been entered into Zen Planner/ SugarWOD.

Remember, a box management solution is great for saving you time but should also be used to enhance your athlete experience in the box. If you’re having a hard time getting athletes to utilize a certain feature or mobile app, make a game out of getting them to try it out.

Learn how Zen Planner + SugarWOD can help you build a strong community and keep you focused on what matters most, your athletes.