How to scale a gym to multiple locations (without the chaos)

How’s it goin’ Gym World?

Mateo reunited with Ben Supik from Activate Body Personal Training. Ben has been in the industry for 16 years, runs 3 locations, and is opening new ones at a rate of one per quarter.

We spoke to Ben once before, when he was generating $85K a month from small-group training. This time, we wanted to understand how he's built a model that's easy to replicate, because most gym owners who want to scale run into the same problem. More locations usually means more complexity and more things that can go wrong.

Ben specifically designed his model to avoid that. Let’s take a look 👇

Two small rooms beat one big one

Each Activate Body location has two training floors, called pods. They’re just under 1,000 sq ft, with capacity for:

• One trainer on the floor

• Maximum of 6 people per session (i.e., 12 people per hour, per location)

• Up to 14 sessions per day, running from 6am to 8pm

And the interesting part: Ben runs the two pods as completely separate spaces, not one big room split down the middle.

That's intentional because his members are gym-anxious. Most of them would describe themselves as people who hate working out. One large room feels busy and overwhelming, so naturally, two smaller ones feel calm and contained.

Ben also puts thought into how the space looks, so he incorporates things like art, plants, and warm lighting. The goal is to create an environment that doesn't feel like a gym, because for his members, that's actually a huge selling point.

The equipment list is purposely minimal

For 6 people, each pod has:

• 6 benches

• 2 sets of dumbbells, up to 80 lbs

• A few kettlebells and bands

That’s it.

The numbers that make it work

Activate Body pricing runs on three tiers:

• À la carte: $65 per session

• Cancel-anytime membership: mid-$50s per session

• Annual contract: mid-$40s per session

According to Ben, 92% of members across all locations are on annual contracts that auto-renew. This makes revenue highly predictable.

The team structure that makes scaling possible

Every staff member, including the concierge who supports all three locations, starts as a trainer. That means anyone can step in to cover a session if needed, so coverage is never an issue.

In addition, Ben structures every role in the gym as a 50/50 split. For trainers, half their time is on the floor, and the other half is ownership of something specific like:

• Member relationships

• Program design

• Community events

This setup ensures coaches aren’t stuck doing back-to-back sessions all day and burning out. They have something else to focus on, which is a big reason staff tend to stay longer.

How he’s building out new locations

Ben knew he wanted to scale after opening his third location. That was more than three years ago.

But before doing anything, he went straight to people who had already built multi-location gym businesses. He paid them for their time, asked questions, and learned from their mistakes.

From there, he made sure he was prepared before opening anything new, including:

• Building up a cash reserve

• Looking at financing options early

• Only expanding when he was confident the business could handle a setback

Ben’s also always looking at potential spaces, even when he’s not actively expanding. That means when something good comes up, he’s ready to move quickly.

And that’s how he’s aiming to open one location per quarter.

TL;DR

Ben scales by keeping things simple and repeatable across every part of the business.

Instead of adding complexity as he grows, he focuses on removing it from the model.

We’ve seen that in a few key ways:

• Two small training pods instead of one large, crowded space

• Minimal equipment so beginners can progress without confusion

• 92% of members on annual contracts, which creates predictable revenue

• A team structure where everyone starts as a trainer and owns a second area of responsibility

• A long onboarding process (320 hours) to maintain consistency as the team grows

• Expansion when the business can handle downside risk, not just upside opportunity

If this was helpful, send it to a gym owner who’d benefit from it.

signing off,

j