Crowded Singapore makes room for micro-gyms

Singapore - All over Singapore, bright yellow containers have started popping up in unassuming places – at the airport, in a park and in front of a shopping mall. Inside them, people are breaking a sweat.

That is because each container houses a so-called micro-gym with a treadmill, weights and other equipment for a private workout that avoids the crowds at traditional gyms, and Singapore’s year-round heat and humidity. Users book sessions via an app run by The Gym Pod, a local company that has expanded to more than 50 locations. Another start-up, My Gym Lab, offers 10 Singapore micro-gyms.

“When I go to the bigger gyms, the machines I like to use are always taken up. So sometimes I end up waiting half an hour or an hour,” said Ms Jacinta Wee, 43, who goes to a Gym Pod near her home at least three times a week. A 60-minute session in an 18 sq m container costs about $12 to $15.

The Gym Pod, started in 2018, and My Gym Lab, which opened last year, are capitalising on

record levels of Singapore residents exercising

or playing sports. About 74 per cent reported exercising at least once a week in 2022, a jump from 54 per cent in 2015, according to a survey by Sport Singapore, part of the city-state’s Ministry of Culture, Community and Youth.

The affordability and convenience of micro-gyms make them attractive to consumers, said Mr Ross Campbell, co-founder of the Singapore Fitness Alliance, a non-profit industry group. “They are also a very safe and hygienic environment,” he said.

Both start-ups say they are profitable and planning to expand, targeting people who are not interested in joining bigger gyms as well as fitness fanatics seeking to augment an existing gym membership. Automated booking systems and the small size of the gyms – in a city where real estate prices have skyrocketed – help keep costs down.

The Gym Pod’s brand and partnerships director Peter Lam said: “Compared to a lot of other studios, where you have to hire a front desk staff manager or cleaners on site, we reduce a lot of our overhead that way, which allows us to keep running.

“The sales trajectory was already on an upward trend pre-Covid-19, and the momentum accelerated post-lockdown.”

Pod expansion

The Gym Pod has around 120,000 registered users in Singapore. It has two micro-gyms in Chicago after experimenting with pop-up sites and is now looking at opportunities in states including California, New York and Florida, Mr Lam said.

According to Jeana Anderson Cohen, founder and chief executive officer of aSweatLife, an online fitness publication, micro-gyms are still uncommon in the United States, but there is an appetite for such facilities, especially from women in large urban markets.

“More and more women are making their way into the weight room, but it doesn’t mean it’s a comfortable space for them to be in,” said Ms Cohen, who is based in Chicago and has tried The Gym Pod. “So whether it’s a modesty issue or whether they just don’t feel super secure in strength training in a typical gym, I think the micro-gym provides a great setting for that.”

Mr Omar Martin, co-founder of My Gym Lab, said he has found that some customers have memberships at bigger gyms but still use a micro-gym once a week or once every two weeks “for their quiet time away from the hustle and bustle”.

Personal trainers are another potential customer base. Mr Shawn Soh, who has been a trainer for seven years, used to bring his clients in Singapore to outdoor areas such as parks for their workout sessions, lugging with him gym equipment that he keeps in his van.

“More recently, I’m gearing towards the micro-gyms because I don’t have to carry too many things,” Mr Soh said. He was so convinced by the business model that he now owns a franchised Gym Pod container of his own and meets about 70 per cent of his clients at micro-gyms close to their homes or workplaces. The private workout helps both client and trainer, he said. At traditional gyms, “people who are built bigger may look or stare at you, and sometimes, it intimidates clients”.

In Singapore, where temperatures hit their highest in four decades in May, the air-conditioned capsule gyms have also provided an alternative to exercising outdoors and a buffer against erratic weather.

During the monsoon season in December, heavy rain also meant that Mr Soh had to cancel outdoor training sessions.

Ms Wee, the fitness enthusiast, still goes to bigger gyms around once a week for the wider array of machines that she can’t find in a micro-gym. But what she can get from a container gym is still sufficient for her workout.

“The stuff I use in larger gyms, I probably can do without, and I can find alternative exercises to do,” she said. BLOOMBERG