Prepare Staff for a Death at Your Fitness Center

Even if a death occurs at your fitness center, proper training for both during and after such an event can help prepare you and your staff members, and help you retain members who may be scared off by the tragedy.

The benefits of regular physical exercise for the prevention of cardiovascular disease are well-known. However, even presumably fit people can die. And, unfortunately, they can die in your fitness center. Even though the incidence of death during exercise in the general population is very low, fitness facilities need to be prepared. Each year, approximately 0.75 and 0.13 per 100,000 young men and women, and six per 100,000 middle-aged men die during exercise.1

Paul Brown, a 20-year industry veteran and CEO of Face to Face consulting, encountered this tragedy early in his career when a member died while running on a treadmill. Despite this, Brown is still positive about the fitness industry. "Our industry has saved far more lives through regular exercise than we have lost," he says. Your members need to know this when faced with a tragic event at your facility. They need to feel safe and secure, and know that you have everything under control. Without safety and emergency guidelines in place, your retention numbers can suffer if a tragic event occurs.

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