Many new DCs begin their careers with the vision of someday opening their own practice.
They imagine their name on a huge sign out front, waiting rooms filled with patients who are excited to see them, and a steady flow of income that is able to support their growing business and cover their household expenses, with enough left over to stash some away for retirement.
While this is a great goal to work towards, if you specialize in sports chiropractic, there is one other type of setting that you may want to consider when setting up shop. It is your area gym, health club, or recreational center.
Fitness membership by the numbers
According to numbers compiled by Statistic Brain, 58 million people use gyms or health clubs. Additionally, the average number of times these members go to these types of facilities to make improvements to their health and wellness averages about twice per week.
It’s statistics like these that explain why the global health club industry brings in 75.7 billion dollars in revenue. This is revenue that you could potentially take a portion of if you were to practice out of this type of setting. There are other benefits as well.
Benefits of a gym-based practice
By serving your chiropractic patients out of your local fitness center, you have greater access to the one population sports chiropractors serve most: individuals who are physically active. One reason for this is because exercising and playing sports come with increased injury risks.
The American Academy of Pediatrics shares that some of the most common sports-related injuries include sprains, strains and stress fractures. The University of Maryland Medical Center adds that individuals with these sprains and strains often seek chiropractic for relief.
Thus, if you are available right when they sustain these types of injuries, not only is it good for your business, but it also provides your patients with a certain level of convenience because you can tend to their injuries immediately.
Working out of a gym, health club, or other type of fitness center also provides its patrons with the benefit of accessing chiropractic as an injury preventative. For instance, one study published in BMC Musculoskeletal Disorders found that chiropractic can help reduce the likelihood of lower limb injuries such as non-contact knee injuries.
Getting gym and health club owners on board
Of course, practicing chiropractic out of a fitness facility requires that you get the owner or operators on board. How do you do that? One of the first steps involves sharing with them the many ways their facility would benefit.
For instance, by offering more services beyond just cardio and strength training, they’ll likely appeal to larger number of clientele. People nowadays like the convenience of businesses that serve dual purposes, giving them the opportunity to tend to more of their needs without having to carve time out of other parts of their day to get more things done.
Plus, by renting you space either at a fixed rate or via a portion of your sales, they’re able to create another steady revenue stream without having to hire staff or purchase more equipment. This can help them better manage during some of their slower months, such as after the New Year’s craze wears down or in the summer when more people choose to exercise outdoors.
Additionally, not only do you benefit from access to the fitness facility’s clientele, but they also benefit from access to yours. When your sports chiropractic patients visit you within their facility, they gain the advantage of in-person marketing to the very type of person who would be most likely to want a membership to their gym or center.
This can increase their numbers without requiring any additional advertising on their part. It carries even more weight if you currently serve any local sports teams or activity-based organizations. By bringing these types of groups into their facility, they’re gaining maximum exposure.
In the end, by approaching gym, health club, and recreational center owners from the vantage point that you working out of their facility would be a win for everyone—them, their clients, and you—you’re able to make a more persuasive argument.
This may also require that you spend a little bit of time educating the decision-makers about how chiropractic can help their target market. But the more they see that this particular treatment method is a valid and scientifically-backed way to prevent and treat injuries, the more likely it is they’ll say yes.
