The Five-Star News Roundup — August’s Biggest Fitness Industry Stories

Next up is a story in Boutique Fitness, which is quite viral right now.

It's quite hot.

And that is an ex-Barry's boot camp instructor has gone on camera.

He's put out on his social media about that non-compete clause.

It doesn't allow their instructors to work at other studios.

Now, this really is a hot topic at the moment.

It's very emotional, especially in the US.

It's hard to... do things like restrict people's work, people get very vocal, and it's easy for controversies like this to start up.

And I just want to give my personal opinion here as someone who operates a boutique gym.

Now, I personally think that other modalities should be fine and should be allowed.

If you work at a strength and conditioning club like BASE and you want to do Pilates coaching, or cycling coaching.

I don't think that really interferes with the work that you're doing.

And actually, I think it can help your brand because it pulls in people from other modalities that aren't really competing with you.

So personally, I feel that should be allowed.

The same modality, I think, is tough.

I think if you work at barriers, I don't think it looks great really from a branding perspective if you're also working at some of the other, let's say, cheaper franchise brands out there that maybe aren't quite as premium, aren't quite as exclusive as Baris and have a bit of a different brand positioning.

I don't personally think that looks great for Baris, so I can kind of see why they perhaps wouldn't be happy with that.

I think some coaches just want complete and absolute freedom, and maybe that's not really realistic for certain brands.

They want to present a certain vibe and a certain feel.

There's also been some conversation around private equity.

getting involved or once private equity get involved, things change and they try and add things in like this.

I think, look, I've spoken to many founders who've used private equity, who have brought private equity in to grow their brand and to expand.

Some have not been particularly happy with how that's panned out.

Some have been very happy.

I think it's just good to understand what private equity come in to do.