Deck the halls with boughs of FITAID! The most wonderful time of the year is upon us, and we're turning up the holiday cheer for our 3rd Annual FITMAS Campaign. This December, we're not elfin' around. We'll be celebrating our FITAID Family by featuring some of the top gyms across the country and running lots of giveaways over on Instagram! If you drank a FITAID in 2023, you're on the nice list, so grab your jingle bells and let's dive into the festive fitness spirit!
Location: Philadelphia, PA
Instagram: @BeFitBeFlawless
Website: BeFitBeFlawless.com
We got the chance to speak with Coach Carly to get an inside peek on how Flawless Fitness gets in the spirit. One of their seasonal staples is "WTF Week", a full week of grueling, challenging workouts to kickoff the holidays. Proceeds from "WTF Week" are donated to charity, and Carly's favorite part about this time of year is seeing all of the women come together for community service. It's a special spectacle to see members band together to give back for the greater good.
Fitness and Christmas mean you're bound to run into a classic '12 days of Christmas' workout. If you're not familiar, the reps are performed according to the song (1; 2, 1; 3, 2, 1; ... 12-1). At Flawless, you'll be getting down and dirty with this annual themed workout Christmas Eve! Carly believes: "it's not the holidays without a soul-crushing workout with your friends before you feast!"
Location: Three Rivers, Michigan
Instagram: @ThePitFitnessRanch
Website: PitFitnessRanch.com
Autumn Yost, owner of The Pit Fitness Ranch loves how excited every body gets about the holiday season, especially in dreary Michigan... it's something to look forward to. On Thanksgiving, they do a hallmark workout dubbed "The Dessert Table" and host a large, community workout on Christmas Eve. Members love to partner up with people they don't usually get to workout with on special occasions. Likewise, Autumn loves the challenge of programming for classes when it's a packed Pit - she has to get creative with bodyweight movements (for equipment and safety purposes, duh!). This has backfired in a 12 days of Christmas workout though... have you ever thought of throwing REVERSE burpees, or candlestick rolls into the mix? Regardless, Autumn feels it's not the holiday's without family.
She also had some words of wisdom for everyone during the busiest time of the year. Autumn's best tip is to simply "enjoy the holidays with your family. Eat the food. Have a good time. Don't beat yourself up. Definitely just relax and indulge. Don't make a big deal about macros and protein - you'll get back to your fitness and your normal nutrition as soon as possible."
Location: Kennewick, WA
Instagram: @NSXFit
Website: NSXFit.com
Natural Selection CrossFit sets out to be Santa's biggest helpers each lap around the calendar. Owner and head coach, Leo Barillas, took the time to share the gym's charitable efforts. Each year, they help out Habitat for Humanity to sponsor families and deliver Christmas gifts. In past years, they have helped build homes for those in need as well.
Leo feels Christmas is the most fun part of the year and takes pride in designing unique 12 Day's of Christmas workouts for his members. One year, they completed a rendition in which EVERY movement required a barbell. He might be the grinch that stole your grip, but here's his best holiday tip: "just spend time with family and relax... it's not the holidays without family and friends."
Location: Burke, Virginia
Instagram: @HaloFitnessExperience
Website: HaloFitnessExperience.com
Every year, Coach Dan looks forward to how the gym rallies together. They host a big Friendsgiving dinner party to raise awareness for a select charity like clockwork. The tradition of giving back to an organization each year has become a core value of Halo's. Dan likes to find special and unique ways to ring in the holidays. One December, they programmed a '21 days of Christmas' workout regimen leading up to the 25th (each workout was based off the day in the countdown).
Dan preaches the 3 R's during the holiday season: relax, rest, recover. People get so caught up in the idea that they are going to ruin all of their progress. His wish upon a star is that people are able to truly enjoy themselves and not look back and think, "why was I so caught up in trying to eat straight..."
Location: Midland Park, NJ
Instagram: @CrossFitBison
Website: CrossFitBison.com
Leader of the Bison Beasts, David, hopped on the line to tell us about CrossFit Bison's holiday traditions. The week before Thanksgiving, they host The Bison Holiday Party, a massive backyard bash to kick off the season. The happiest time of year tends to also be the busiest time of the year. Due to the chaos, Bison uses the month of December to repeat crowd-favorites where the gym runs 3-weeks of fun WODs (yes, we said fun... ask Dave, he keeps a running log) to boost morale throughout what can be a stressful time.
David's best recovery tip for the holidays is to value sleep more than you think and to stay hydrated. You're up early to squeeze in a workout and you're out late running errands, playing magical elf, or Santa Claus himself. To avoid getting sick, sleep and hydration are key. Last but not least, he feels "it's not the holidays without giving more than you receive." Need some gift inspiration? Check below!
We asked these gym owners and coaches what they thought would make a superb stocking stuffer for your CrossFit-doing, gym-loving, fitness-y friend and they did NOT miss. Here are their answers:
Carly: FITAID Go! Sticks!
Autumn: Thumb tape... AND FITAID (of course.)
Leo: Definitely FITAID.
Dan: Hand wraps or gymnastics grips!
Dave: Thumb tape - not too expensive, and small enough to fit!
As FITAID's FITMAS Campaign unfolds, these gyms prove that the holiday season is not just about indulging in festive treats, but also sweating it out with friends and family.
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Cover photo By Matt Stone / MediaNews Group / Boston Herald
LIFEAID randomly surveyed 135 gym owners in July of 2020, in order to find out how they are handling re-opening, keeping members safe, plans for reinvigorating memberships, stocking their fridges with FITAID, and more...
> > > Stay well.
Repost of original article on TheDrum.com by Kenneth Hein | 14 July 2020 10:00am
Imagine your brand was built in lockstep with CrossFit and then let’s say more than a third of your sales came through gyms. Now imagine gyms were closed and the chief exec of CrossFit became an instant pariah because of offensive George Floyd and coronavirus tweets. That is the exact situation LIFEAID Beverage Co found itself in just a month ago.
“It was a spiraling shitstorm,” says LIFEAID co-founder and president Aaron Hinde of the CrossFit controversy. “We were the first company to step forward and say we’re not in alignment with [CrossFit] leadership in this way of thinking. We took a stand.” In addition to speaking out immediately, it cancelled its long-time sponsorship of the CrossFit Games.
While Hinde and co-founder/chief exec Orion Melehan were in complete agreement about the move, there was some “blowback for jumping ship on CrossFit,” says Hinde.
Faced with this wildly difficult environment, how is the brand doing? It sold out of its IMMUNITYAID product. Direct-to-consumer sales on its website have doubled and Amazon sales have tripled since March, per the company. Overall, the company is still experiencing growth numbers similar to as if it were a “normal” year with a stretch goal of hitting $50m in sales.
So how did LIFEAID maintain its trajectory? In many ways, the LIFEAID founders fortified their brand for such a moment from the very start. Launched in 2009 by a sports chiropractor (Hinde) and a financial planner (Melehan), they decided to hyper-focus on specific audiences before building out their core brand.
They identified a wide-open space for a healthy alternative to energy drinks, colas and then-fringe drinks like coconut water. The first audience they targeted was golfers. They realized this highly desirable demographic was under-served, so their inaugural product was GOLFERAID. They followed suit with FITAID which soon became a cult favorite at CrossFit gyms.
The alliance with CrossFit was both a successful and obvious one. Hinde and Melehan met at a CrossFit in Santa Cruz, Calif., a stone’s throw from the CrossFit headquarters office. After draining $30,000 apiece from their bank accounts and sweet talking a local aluminum can supplier with a hand-written note and a gift card to Ruth’s Chris steakhouse, they were on their way.
“Focusing on early adopters in a single target market, really capturing and speaking to that market and getting them totally raving about the product and expanding from there really worked for us,” says Melehan.
Only after their sub-brands took hold that did they launch their core LIFEAID brand at major retailers like Walmart, Whole Foods and Kroger. Today, retail makes up 60% of sales with further distribution deals on the horizon.
“They upended the classic rules of marketing,” says Beverage Business Insights editor Gerry Khermouch. “They launched their grocery play after they launched their other SKUS. They are making it up as they go along.”
This includes the counterintuitive move of debuting new line extensions during the pandemic. Last month, the company rolled out FITAID and IMMUNITYAID go powder lines anticipating that consumers will be on the go soon. Additionally, it is expanding into the UK this month. Melehan says, “We’re really good at doing the opposite of what everyone else does.”
Despite the brand’s expansion plans, it never lost sight of the audience that put it on the map: gym owners. That’s why it kicked off a program in April (opens in new window) that gives gyms $15 every time a members orders LIFEAID online and enters the gym’s unique code. The program concludes this month.
“They’ve become a much broader brand in multiple channels, but they recognize the base of the brand goes back to CrossFit. They need to maintain allegiance to individual gym owners and stick to their brand roots,” says Khermouch. “They are being shrewd in not being cavalier and taking them for granted.”
Rewarding gym owners is just the latest savvy move that also works to bolster its powerful direct-to-consumer e-commerce audience. LIFEAID has been smartly building its lists and even leveraged traditional snail mail offers in the beginning.
Of late, it has shifted sponsorship and sampling dollars deeper into social media and Amazon advertising. This includes, much like other DTC brands, staying active on Facebook. “There’s a reason why Facebook’s share price continues to climb,” says Melehan. “Even though everyone is boycotting them, small and medium-sized businesses have no other option. We are still a scrappy startup that needs to be ROI focused. The large conglomerates have other options.”
This new marketing mix appears to be working with online sales making up for much of the shortfall experienced from gym closures, per Melehan. In fact, as many as 80% of its consumers have set their carts to automatic reorder.
Success online and in traditional sales channels is now crucial for the brand, especially since one-in-four Americans say they will never return to a gym, according to a new study. Staying true to their counter-intuitive tactics, the study was commissioned by none other than the LIFEAID founders. “We were curious. As things reopen, we wanted to know what we can realistically expect,” says Melehan.
While a little planning never hurts, after everything the brand has experienced in just a few weeks’ time, LIFEAID's founders are ready for anything. Melehan says, “the decision matrix is expanding. You’ve got to make massive, multi-hundred thousand-dollar decisions within a couple of hours right now.” So far, they appear to be making the right ones.
This is a repost of the original article which you can view on TheDrum.com
All rights reserved.
> > > Stay well.
Joshua Schall sat down with LIFEAID co-founder Aaron Hinde during an April 2020* interview—just as the COVID-19 pandemic was beginning to affect both business owners and consumers—for a candid discussion about how to harness the power of your mind to set yourself up for success.
(*Note: This interview contains dated information about the LIFEAID LIFT program which ran until late June 2020, to help get gyms back on their feet.)
A recent OnePoll survey asked 2,000 Americans how they will be handling their fitness and whether they will be returning to their local gym, as doors begin reopening worldwide. The results may shock you.
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Results from a recent One Poll survey, published in a New York Post article on June 26, 2020
A survey of 2,000 Americans who exercise at least twice a week surveyed respondents on their attitudes toward gyms in the “corona age” and found 24 percent are over them, with one in three saying they will be likely to go less than before.
However, four in 10 remain undeterred by COVID-19 and said they will be returning to the gym at the same rate or more once it opens back up.
The study, conducted by OnePoll on behalf of LIFEAID Beverage Co., also found many active Americans are turning to at-home workouts.
Forty-two percent of those polled said they have a home gym set-up that they prefer over their membership gym.
Going back to gyms is currently a big unknown, but many safety measures will surely be implemented upon re-opening, including masks.
Wearing a mask during a pandemic is common sense for many, with only 26 percent saying they are anti-mask and won’t go to any gym that requires it.
Twenty-nine percent said they are anti-mask but would wear one if their gym required it, while 20 percent are for masks and will wear one at the gym reluctantly — and 26 percent are for masks and won’t go to any gym that does not require them.
All that being said, 62 percent of those polled said they believe wearing masks in gyms will help against the spread of COVID-19 and 83 percent agreed they’d feel much more comfortable in gyms if everybody was wearing a mask.
Masks aren’t the only safety concern for gym-goers, however.
Thirty-eight percent of those surveyed said they will be wiping down the equipment each time before they use it.
Over nine in 10 said they’d be more vigilant about others wiping down equipment properly and half (49 percent) said they’d call somebody out for not properly cleaning the equipment after they use it.
“We understand why some gym-goers may reject wearing a mask throughout their entire workout, but no one should drop the ball on cleanliness and disinfection of hands and equipment. It’s a courtesy and a personal responsibility as much as the responsibility of the gyms,” said Aaron Hinde, co-founder of LIFEAID Beverage Co.
“What gym devotees also need to understand is there is a price for higher standards of cleaning and safety at the gym. That requires more staff, more equipment, more cleaning supplies. So gym-goers should not be surprised or even indignant if they get hit with higher fees. And if the gym is critical to your balance and wellness, you should accept those fees.”
People are keen to exhibit caution when returning to public spaces to get back into their exercise routine.
The average respondent said that when their gym opens back up, they’ll still wait around four and half weeks before finally returning for a workout.
Many feel this can’t come soon enough, as 75 percent said they feel they need to put in some overtime in order to get back in shape after a lengthy quarantine.
But it hasn’t been all bad, as the survey showed Americans learned some self-love during the time in isolation.
Three in four said they are more accepting of their bodies now than they were pre-pandemic and the average respondent was found to have made four positive lifestyle changes since it started, too.
“If we experience lasting, positive change from the gym shut down, we hope it’s an embrace of some level of moderation. We can be fit, healthy and very strong without being obsessive,” said Hinde. “And smart moderation may also be better for our longer term physical health.”
LIFEAID co-founder Aaron Hinde and daughter Trinity share the top-five steps to help our community safely return to the gym, as doors begin reopening nationwide. We know how important fitness is to our overall well-being, so please stay safe and stay fit out there. We're all in this together.
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"The obstacle in the path becomes the path. Never forget, within every obstacle is an opportunity to improve our condition."
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"We must remain optimistic for our children, for the future. Love is always the answer."
—Aaron Hinde
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The New York Times recently released their top recommendations to help gyms in the U.S. reopen successfully this summer. LIFEAID co-founder Aaron Hinde and his daughter Trinity share the FITAID FIVE with their community. Knowing how important fitness is to our mental and physical health and overall well-being, please stay safe and stay fit out there. We're in this together!
> > > Stay well.
LIFEAID is giving $15 cash, from every 24-can purchase made by consumers at LIFEAIDlift.com, directly to their designated local gym or business. BONUS: Members will save $5 OFF/case! Simply visit LIFEAIDlift.com for more details.
SHARE the link with others to help give back to the local gyms & businesses we call 'home.'
We're all in this together. Stay strong.
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Mike Bledsoe (The Strong Coach) and Aaron Hinde (co-founder of LIFEAID) will be hosting a LIVE Zoom call this week, providing helpful tips & information to get gym owners through this difficult time. For full details, click the link below.
