Michigan Muscle Boy

The Gym Business

I've been interested in the gym business for quite some time, mainly because it combines working out with making money; given the amount of time I spend in the gym, seemingly not a bad thing.  This past Friday, Paul Wright owner of Gold's Gym, Ann Arbor, and I had a chance to sit down and discuss his entry into the gym business.  We're going to do a short series of it on Muscle Ventures, typically 5 to 7 minutes a shot.  I just posted the first episode.

We talk about how Gold's got started in Ann Arbor.  We're now about 10 months out from launch, and Gold's has over a thousand members.  At $45 per month, that's a base cash flow of $45K, making for $540K in annual revenue.  The target membership of 2300 leads to an annual revenue of $1,242,000.  Initial investment appears to have been well over a million, plus there's a franchise fee, employees to pay, and rent.  My guess is that full membership leads to a business that is barely profitable for the franchisee.  Multiple locations where the franchisee can spread costs is probably more lucrative.  As we'll see in later episodes, Paul is looking to open additional locations.

Catching up

I continue in super work mode.  I've been blogging regularly with students on my learning remix site, a sort of blog mash-up for students in my classes.  We've also done a sponsorship deal with Gold's Gym in Ann Arbor for muscleventures.  That won't really result in too many changes to the site.  Likely, more of our content will be originating from Gold's because we will work out there more.

Onward

Well, the strike continues or maybe not, but I've decided to move on.  As a new faculty, I'm not on strike because I am in a weird gray zone, and the president of the union advised us all not to go on strike.  I'm also not picketing but have brought various sustenance to the picketers.  They're colleagues.  I've never been in a situation where I was on the opposite side from management.  It's a stressful line to tread, hence the last post.

I responded to comments on that post.  I really appreciate the support.

We've been doing a lot of workouts, and I have not been reporting on them too well.  Here's where we stand.  Right now, we are concluding a muscle definition phase after having started our metabolic diets.  We did the muscle definition phase to figure out how it worked before Nancy got hot on her competition.  We're doing one tomorrow, so I'll write up what it is like then.

Next week, we may begin a three week max strength period.  When we have done max strength in the past, the one thing I have remarked is the level of mental concentration it takes.  I wonder if now is the time to do it. 

Diane, a reader who commented on the last post, notes that she has done some figure competitions and is interested in following Nancy's progress in her preparation for the next bodybuilding competition (here and here).  Diane, I highly recommend looking at Serious Strength Training.  For female bodybuilders, they focus a lot on max strength and muscle definition.  We will do more hypertrophy than they recommend, probably all of October, November, and December.  In our most recent podcast, Nancy and I discuss some of her training goals.

Eastern Michigan, A Challenging Start

So, I never really talk about what I do, but the whole damn thing has shot to hell.  For nine years, I worked as a professor at University of Michigan.  Then I didn't make tenure there, so I switched this year to Eastern Michigan, which seemed like it had some possibilities.  I arrive, and that day the whole damn place goes on strike.

The strike is acrimonius, and it sucks to start this way.

This blog provides a good overview of what is going on from someone who has been there longer than me.

End of heavy squat week

I've been a bit overwhelmed by work and our ambitious lifting schedule.  We've made some great gains and have some great exercise analyses scheduled for Muscle Ventures.  I'm really excited about our squat series. 

The video is helping us uncover some real issues.  Nancy is going to write up one we did yesterday.  At left is a teaser pic.  Just so you know what to expect, hip shimmy is not a good thing.

Scott Bird in a Michigan Muscle Boy T-Shirt

So, we have a picture of the ever-profilic, powerlifting blogger, Scott Bird, wearing a Michigan Muscle Boy T-shirt.  He joins Mary Reiter and our pal and The Big Girl (aka The Michigan Muscle Boy spokesmodel).

Scott was the first to link to this blog way back in January.  He is also a great cataloger of all things weight lifting.  His sidebar, by itself, is a resource from which I have pulled many links.  I have also discovered a number of exercises such as the Zottman curl and Alwyn Cosgrove's mechanical advantage supersets on Scott's blog.

It's great to have him in the muscle boy fold.

Upcoming Events

So, we've had a bit of a fallow period here on Michigan Muscle Boy as travel, insane work requirements, and an even more insane workout schedule with Arnold have kept me from regular posting.  All of that is about to change for the better as regards Michigan Muscle Boy.  I'm back from travel, and things are more under control.

Arnold and I have been discussing a few things, and I have made a few decisions on my own.  Here's what you can expect to see:

• Muscle Ventures Media, the first element of Arnold's and my joint venture, is going to receive its final push to launch.  We are going to implement a number of the fixes Scott Bird has suggested.  We also have a lot of backlogged content.
• We will do some exercise analyses of Nancy's bodybuilding poses.  As it turns out, these are isometric exercises in their own right.
• Muscle Ventures will sponsor Nancy in her competition, now scheduled for April 29 in Flint, MI.
• I am going to post more running commentary here on our new rotation.
• I am going to come back to some of the posts on tweaks and nutrition that first started this blog.
• Nancy and I are likely to guest-author on each other's blogs.