Semi-Private Training Model: Warlock CrossFit's $20-25K/mo Pivot

What’s up, Gym World?

Mateo caught up with Erik Zeyher, owner of Warlock Athletics in Poughkeepsie, NY, live at the Two-Brain Business Summit in Chicago.

Erik’s been running Warlock since 2014.

Group classes, personal training, nutrition, he’s done it all for over a decade. But a couple of years ago, his PT program had a problem hiding behind healthy revenue.

His coaches were doing 140 hours of personal training a month, and there was no room left to grow.

Here’s how he fixed it.

The problem: a fully booked PT schedule with nowhere to go

Warlock’s personal training business was working.

• Clients were booked

• Coaches were busy

• Revenue was solid

That was the problem.

At $120/hr for one-on-one sessions, some clients simply couldn’t afford to keep training at that rate forever. Coaches were maxed out on hours in the day, and Erik had no way to bring on new PT clients without hiring more staff, which meant the model had hit its ceiling.

Around 2023, Two-Brain introduced the semi-private model to its members. Erik had seen it work in the Two-Brain community and understood the concept.

Planting the seed before the launch

Erik didn’t blast an announcement and hope for the best.

No, he spent two to three weeks setting up the launch before it happened.

Most of that groundwork happened in goal reviews, the regular check-ins Erik was already running with his PT clients. If someone said they wanted to achieve a particular goal, he pitched them a new option.

“We need to do accessory work in this thing, and we need to do an hour's worth of work, and right now you’re doing a half-hour private lesson. But we can write the programming and get you a little bit more work at a cheaper price point.”

For clients training 30 minutes at a time, semi-private meant a full hour for about $8 more. For clients already paying for a full hour of 1-on-1, it meant the same programming for roughly $40 less. Either way, it was a better deal, and it solved the same problem they were already paying to solve.

By the time Erik was ready to launch, he wasn’t selling a new idea.

He was closing a conversation that his clients had already started.

Launch day: 16 people in less than 24 hours

When it was time to go live, Erik didn’t run a big campaign. He posted one available session on Facebook and sent an email.

Four spots filled in three hours.

Twelve more people responded who couldn’t get into that first session, giving Erik a waitlist for four more slots.

That day, he generated an extra $8,000 in revenue.

From there, semi-private grew steadily: four sessions, then eight, then twelve, and hitting a few scheduling bottlenecks along the way. Today, Warlock runs 18 semi-private sessions a week, bringing in $20,000 to $25,000 a month.

Inside Warlock's semi-private training model

Warlock’s semi-private sessions run four clients to one coach, occasionally stretching to five. Each client still gets individualized programming, built around their own goals, just delivered in a small group instead of one-on-one.

The space reflects that shift. Warlock has about 6,000 square feet total: 3,000 for group classes, and roughly 2,000 that used to sit mostly empty as overflow space for kids’ classes, now converted into a dedicated semi-private area. Half-racks are paired together so four people can train side by side, each running their own program.

The programming cycle

With 66 members currently on semi-private programs, Warlock is writing 66 individual programs every six weeks. That’s a real operational load, so Erik built a cycle to keep it manageable:

• 10 days before a program is due, the client confirms they’re continuing

• The coach has 7 days to write the next program

• 3 days before it’s due, it lands on Erik’s desk for review

• Every program is printed on cardstock, not delivered online

Better pay for coaches, without more hours

The math that made this sustainable wasn’t just about client pricing. It was about what coaches take home per hour.

Under the old PT model, Warlock was paying coaches around $53 an hour. Under semi-private, that same hour with four clients in it pays out closer to $66 to $90 an hour, without asking coaches to work more hours in the day.

Warlock now splits its staff into two tracks: coaches who run group classes only, and coaches trained to run both classes and semi-privates. One lead coach currently runs the majority of the 18 weekly semi-private sessions.

Retention: not all growth is equal

Erik’s noticed a split in how semi-private clients stick around, depending on how they found the program.

Referrals from a local chiropractor tend to churn faster, in the 6-to-18-week range, because they came in to solve a specific injury and leave once it’s resolved.

Members who move from group classes into semi-private stick around longer, because they’re finally getting the individualized attention that group classes couldn’t give them.

It’s also reduced the amount of manual check-in work the team needs to do. With more built-in touchpoints through the semi-private programming cycle, Warlock needs fewer standalone goal reviews to keep tabs on how members are progressing.

TL;DR

Warlock CrossFit's PT program was profitable, but it had hit its ceiling. Coaches were maxed out at 140 hours a month, and there was no way to grow without adding more of them.

Erik fixed it with a semi-private training model:

• Introducing a 4:1 semi-private training model instead of hiring more 1-on-1 coaches

• Pre-selling the shift through goal reviews before ever announcing it publicly

• Pricing it so it was a clear win for clients on both ends of the spectrum

• Building a repeatable programming cycle to keep quality consistent at scale

• Paying coaches more per hour without asking for more hours

The result: an extra $20,000 to $25,000 a month in revenue, coaches clearing six figures, and a semi-private training model that keeps growing without breaking the team that runs it.

This is an example of where growth can be generated for a gym, so remember to keep an open mind.

Hope this helps,

j