LifeCycle Studio is an indoor cycling studio located in Frederick, Maryland.
They opened their doors January 10th, just a couple months before the shutdowns in response to the pandemic began.
Hit particularly hard by the closings, fitness centers such as LifeCycle have faced some unique challenges to continue providing services to their customers. Without the ability to welcome members into their spaces, they’ve had to be creative with their solutions in order to keep going.
Surviving & Thriving in Pandemic: A Community Apart Together
Keeping people moving.
With only a couple of months to get going and build their membership before they were shut down, owners Alyssa and Harlow had to really think outside the box to keep people moving.
“Within a week, we rented out all the bikes, we turned virtual on and started streaming classes virtually… We invested in the technology, the lighting, the video to make it the best as possible,” shared Harlow.
To meet the needs of today’s large work at home community, LifeCycle also eventually initiated Video on Demand classes for their members. It allows them to meet today’s worker and workout enthusiasts where they are.
A year later and some of their bikes are still rented out to members at home. With the different comfort levels and the space capacities where they are, getting back to normal hasn’t totally happened yet.
“But that’s okay,” said Harlow. “There is a level of comfortability that people have knowing that we take certain precautions when they come in. I think that people are going to have to get more comfortable coming out again… There’s going to be a little bit of easing back into things before that happens.”
Not wanting to miss out on the connection between them and their members, Harlow and Alyssa have developed an online community to mirror their in person one.
Taking a community from in person to online.
Through local collaborations with other businesses and taking time to engage with their online community, LifeCycle has been able to bring the sense of community they feel in the studio to their online space.
“We are so close to our community,” explained Harlow. “We have built this community where these people sometimes that come in don’t even know each other, but next thing you know they’re commenting on their posts and they’re linking on Facebook and Instagram. And then they come in and they’re talking and it’s so cool to see these relationships develop.”
This sense of community that they built in studio was replicating itself online and, at a time when being in person was just not possible, it became exactly what was needed to sustain them, “We knew the feeling we wanted to feel. But when it came time, I don’t remember ever being mindful of it, it just kinda happened. But honestly, it’s probably because of the passion Alyssa and I have for this,” noted Harlow.
And it was that passion that compelled them to find a way to keep people connected through the pandemic when getting together just wasn’t possible.
Alyssa and Harlow looked to their social channels to create that bond, “We did Facebook Lives every morning, Monday through Friday,” shared Harlow.
It was a way to connect, to keep people motivated and informed.
They started with just the two of them and then added other instructors and eventually, other local business owners.
Their community really looked forward to their morning updates and they feel it was a great way to open up more partnerships and opportunities amongst their fellow business owners.
Working together, winning together
Which leads us to another great idea the LifeCylce team discovered: the power of collaborations.
Looking for an interesting way to “stop the scroll” as Harlow described it, the team at LifeCycle joined forces with Velvet Lounge, a clothing boutique in Downtown Frederick, Pump and Rye, a cafe in Urbana, DNA Salon and photographer Erik Gibson to capture some really fun, intriguing, unconventional photos of the girls in the studio.
“It was so much fun!” shared Harlow. “Doing these ridiculous photoshoots on a bike cycling with like a huge sub makes you stop. And just the opportunity to stop that scroll, introduce the business and just share back and forth with each other was so fun.”
It was a great way to band together, do something fun and really get people to engage.
“Things like that have been great to reach different parts of the community and still support each other and help each other out by sharing the different communities you’re tied into,” explained Harlow.
It’s exactly what was needed to keep them going through the last year.
Want to learn more about LifeCycle? Check out their full Facebook live interview here.
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