Case Study: Setting up a web-based workout data system for VirginActive

VirginActive is one of the leading examples of the new breed of ‘life centres’ opening across the country, where the emphasis is on size and a world-class range of state-of-the-art facilities. Unlike many of its contemporaries however, at VirginActive the environment is bright, colourful and fun, as well as offering a huge range of activities well beyond those of a normal health club. The core offering of each centre is still its gym however, with over 200 pieces of cutting-edge fitness equipment, using the Technogym key system, where exercises are logged against members’ own personal fitness programmes.

All the technology in the world can only achieve results if users are motivated to use it, and this is where VA’s highly-trained fitness staff come in. They act in partnership with the members, helping them to ‘push their envelope’ and increase their workout programme in order to achieve their goals more quickly. In addition to the day-to-day contact with members, VA periodically undertakes ‘Quest for Fitness’ programmes, the primary purpose of which is to strengthen the ongoing process of engaging with its members, all with the aim of improving their overall physical fitness, but without putting them under pressure to do so. As an added incentive, each Quest programme has various prizes for hitting certain targets, culminating in the opportunity to win, as an example, a Caribbean holiday!

ABC was asked to consider how a forthcoming Quest programme could increase the feedback it provided to members regarding their progress towards specific Quest targets. Based on how previous Quests had operated, and the nature of the Quest workout data to be captured on this occasion, ABC put forward proposals for a revised data entry scheme. As a result, the Solihull life centre decided to implement a pilot programme under which both the fitness staff and programme members themselves would have a better picture of how they were doing. It also made sense, having captured members’ workout data and calculated their session and cumulative points scores, for this information to be made available to them via the Internet.

Paul Mardon, Solihull Centre Fitness Manager, commented “We are constantly looking at how we might improve the VirginActive experience for our members. Since they already enjoy one of the most advanced and user-friendly health and fitness environments going, it seemed logical to look at making our member communications even more switched-on and user-friendly, while at the same time improving our management information in-house. ABC showed us that with very little effort we could implement a regime that would make it easy for members to notify their workout data, easy for my team to capture that data, easy for management to have an up-to-the minute assessment of who had done what, and for this process to complement our ethos of being dynamic, efficient and customer-focused.”

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