With Macrostax, fitness brands can drive additional revenue by providing their members with customized nutrition plans
As a gym owner or trainer, you get the question, “How should I fuel my body to hit my goals” multiple times per week. With the consumer shift from looking to simply be fit to seeking overall health and wellness also comes an increased demand for nutritional information. But most gym personnel simply don’t have the time or resources to provide something as personal as nutrition coaching to every single member.
One option is to hire a nutritionist, but that can be costly, and staff members come and go. If you lose your nutritionist you lose this service, and you’re back to square one.
Lindsey Jenks knows this situation first-hand. Having owned two CrossFit gyms, she got nutrition-related questions daily.
“I felt like I was failing my clients because I couldn’t help support this crucial piece of my member’s fitness journeys,” she said.
As a competitive athlete herself, she struggled with finding the best ways to fuel her own body, until she applied macronutrients and it changed her life.
“I was able to get a handle on exactly what I should be eating to properly fuel my body and I got leaner and fitter, fast,” she said. “I wanted to bring this to other people, so I developed Macrostax – a simple way for people to get customized nutrition plans based on macros, as well as meal plans, direction and support.”
Jenks took Macrostax to the consumer market and has served nearly 200,000 members. For five years, she honed the app based on feedback and customer needs, and in 2022 she expanded her focus to B2B and launched Macrostax Team — a software platform that complements the original app, but was built just for gyms and fitness franchises. They now have over 1,500 gyms across the US that have signed up including MADabolic, F45 Training, Orangetheory Fitness, Anytime Fitness and more — and growing fast.”
“It’s a truly scalable software. The goal is to offer nutrition to members so the gym owners don’t need to do any work on that end if they don’t want to, or if they don’t feel they have the right nutrition expertise,” said Jenks.
Gyms See Real Results
With Macrostax Team, CrossFit 313 in Texas was able to achieve an extra $27.6K in annual revenue, a 47% increase in total memberships and a 60% decrease in cancellations.
“You can’t put a price on our return on investment in Macrostax,” says the gym’s owner, Ashley Thompson. “Clients get better fitness, better performance and better everything.”
The additional value-adds for gyms are significant, as Macrostax provides a significant revenue stream while boosting acquisition and retention.
“I have a whole new source of income that has completely changed the game for me,” said Sami Aldinger, owner of boutique gym The Refinery in North Dakota.
Macrostax Team offers more features to gym owners than simply using the consumer app. With a Team subscription, they have control and flexibility over how nutrition is run in their gym including co-branding, automated nutrition challenges, instant messaging, and the ability to track individual and group usage and progress.
“In addition to helping members achieve their goals, and building community, the challenges impact acquisition and retention,” Jenks said. “We’ve seen multiple occurrences where a gym promotes the challenge on social media and it gets new members in the door.”
Easy To Onboard
How does Macrostax Team work? The answer is remarkably simple.
“The gym owner or fitness pro signs up, they are able to invite their clients, and Macrostax takes it from there, providing personal nutrition plans, recipes, plan tracking, nutrition coaching and more,” Jenks said.
To further ease any heavy lifting on the part of the gym, Macrostax offers robust marketing content including success stories with before and after content.
Gyms and trainers can also view members’ and clients’ progress and communicate with them about their progress, a nice touchpoint opportunity that’s embedded in the app.
With a market full of health, wellness and nutrition apps, Jenks says it’s personalization and education that set Macrostax Team apart.
Go Beyond Simple Food Tracking
“Other apps on the market are basically food trackers,” she said. “Macrostax is educational. It includes coaching and support from our team of certified nutrition coaches. It includes custom meal plans based not only on the user’s macros but also their lifestyle. The app also has a portion feature that will take a recipe and auto portion it to hit the user’s exact macros.”
MADabolic, a fitness franchise with over 30 locations across the country, recently partnered up with Macrostax Team to incorporate custom nutrition as one of their evergreen membership offerings. Thanks to the software’s ease of use, they were able to successfully roll out the new program to their franchise locations in less than a couple of weeks
Jenks says Macrostax Team is built to scale and has the capacity to handle millions of users and thousands of gyms.
Jenks is also in talks with fitness tech companies about integrating directly with other types of software. Think gym management software plus Macrostax.
When asked about the future of Macrostax, Jenks points to consumer demand for wellness, not just fitness.
“Nutrition and fitness have always gone hand in hand, and now as consumers lean more into overall wellness, they want both from their fitness facility,” she said. “In the next five to ten years, every club around the globe will have some sort of customized nutrition for their clients, and that’s the gap we fill.”
This article originally ran in the The Business of Prevention, Recovery & Longevity Report 2024. Download the report now to read more insights into how fitness and wellness brands are making strides in key markets.