When I first heard about Curves for Women, the single-sex gym franchise, I immediately joked that someone would create Angles for Men. It was only a matter of time. From Men’s Health Club Owner Aims for Success:
Gennaro borrowed an idea from Curves International for women, the fastest-growing gym franchise in the world, and created a single-sex exercise franchise for men.‘I’ve done circuit training for men pretty much as Curves has done it,’ Gennaro said. ‘A lot of my friends’ wives or mothers own a Curves. I said, ‘This is for women. Why not for men?”
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Curves leaped from a standing start in 1992 to about 6,000 facilities today, and claims to open around 200 franchises a month. Cuts Fitness for Men is trying to get rolling, having started in February 2003 with one facility in Clark, N.J. It has 10 open now, with at least two more on the way.
What’s the formula?
As with Curves, Cuts offers a half-hour aerobics-and-strength combination at a low price in a facility that can be tucked into the space of a men’s store in a strip mall. It’s a bare-bones workout shop. There are no coffee bars, no dance floors, not even a shower. It specializes in fast fitness for time-pressured participants.
Doesn’t sound too bad so far.
Like Curves, Cuts programs target beginners, with strength training equipment that does not require anyone to do so much as load a weight onto a bar. The machines work on hydraulics — they resist the pressure of an exerciser pushing just as a car shock absorber resists the pressure of a car hitting a bump. Exercisers who want to work harder push harder, which creates more resistance in the hydraulics.
Ooh, that’s a problem. Without an objective measure of how hard you’re working, you naturally won’t work quite as hard. And without any spandex-clad ladies to impress, you definitely won’t work as hard.