CONTROVERSY: Barry’s Bootcamp Unveils New Non-Compete Clause

The internet is exploding after Barry’s Bootcamp released an updated employee handbook last week that prohibits both part-time and full-time coaches from coaching at other studios. While there is understandable backlash from the Barry’s coaches, there is a bigger issue at play here. 

“Let us hustle.” – every trainer, allegedly. 

While any policy that limits the earning potential of a fitness professional has obvious downsides, I believe that this is a bug (not a feature) of the fitness profession. In fact, it’s worse for the customer, the trainer, the gym, and the industry when we normalize the side hustle mentality that is pervasive in our industry.  

This would obviously require businesses like Barry’s to structure themselves to support a living wage for its coaches. But, more on that later. 

Pay-by-Class Has Never Been a Profession

Even for the “celebrity” trainers on Peloton, Barry’s and Soulcycle fame who make decent hourly rates soon realize they are trading time for money. Have you ever seen a successful coach paid by the class coaching a ninth or tenth year? 

Catch my drift? It doesn’t work. 

The role of professional coach must be diversified to extend beyond on the floor coaching. Selling any other dream here isn’t reality. One of the most vocal trainers about the new Barry’s upgrade was passionately bragging about coaching fifteen classes a week for one studio and eleven classes a week for another. Twenty-six hours a week on the floor is a guaranteed way to churn a coach out of the profession. 

Speaking of Churn

The most important problem facing the fitness industry is that business models don’t support the professionalization of the coaching role. The best thing for the trainers is also the best thing for the customer, the gyms, and the fitness industry as a whole: professional coaches who are committed to one facility. 

“bUt ThE mAtH dOeSn’T mAtH”

Running a gym business is difficult, sure. The most challenging statistic in any gym business is churn, or the rate at which people leave your sales pipeline. Well, no thanks to large venture capital backed fitness experiences like Barry’s Bootcamp, Soul Cycle, F45, etc, we have an industry that either intentionally or unintentionally has all but commoditized fitness in the mind of the consumer. 

How’s they do this? It’s a simple two part process:

1. Reinforcing drop-in culture (because they can charge more per session), and
2. Offer training that lacks a method and lacks a progression of skill or fitness qualities (because it doesn’t force people to commit to anything.)

Now, you’ve got a consumer-base that you’re getting a premium per session rate from in a context that makes them feel like they can collect an hour here and collect an hour there and string together real fitness. Since this doesn’t progress beyond the short term, these gym members constantly churn. 

The result is an ecosystem where neither consumers nor trainers are committed to anything long term and everyone loses. 

Barry’s new policy isn’t the problem. It’s highlighting the symptoms of an industry that lacks courage to build business models that support professional coaches and sell services that are rooted in progression and commitment.