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Perhaps most impressive and surprising for a gym built on boxing: 70% of the members are women. “Even though we make the workouts as hard as we possibly can, we attract more women, because women take it more seriously,” Foreman says. “And for whatever reason, boxing is big right now.”
That’s good news for an entrepreneur who grew up in boxing. (George Sr. sits on the board of EveryBodyFights.) Foreman III worked at his father’s training camps, counted his rounds, tied his shoes, sat watching him day in and day out. “It was very much in my blood,” he says. “But I never did it myself. Then when I was 25, I was overweight and my brothers had been teasing me because I had never been a varsity athlete. So I got them all on a conference call and I said, ‘If I fight in one amateur boxing match, will you guys stop it.’ So I started training, and I’m kind of obsessive when I start something.”
Now he’s obsessive about taking his one gym and turning it into a national fitness brand. To help do that, he’s embracing technology, because brick-and-mortar locations aren’t enough. Hence, new trainers at his gyms get certified via the BOXFIIT trainer app, which launched in February. (In August, EveryBodyFights will launch the BOXFIIT fighter app, for customers.)
That may sound counterintuitive—how can someone learn to run an in-person fitness class by completing tasks on their phone? Foreman says it’s more rigorous than it sounds: a potential trainer has to submit a video in which they perform, and then teach, every movement or action that will come up in class. Foreman views and grades every one of them.
In fact, he says it’s superior to the two-day, in-person training certification programs that have become popular in recent years. “You can’t learn that stuff in just two days,” he says. “Maybe in two weeks. But you can do it at your own pace. We spit out a better trainer remotely than those programs do in person.”
Could EveryBodyFights be the next Soulcycle, Flywheel, or David Barton Gym? If both George Foremans have anything to say about it, yes—and maybe bigger. To be sure, success isn’t automatic in this space: Planet Fitness had a disappointing IPO last year, and SoulCycle has had to delay its own. But Foreman III says the best advice his father gave him in the business world was to think big. “Don’t do this for 1,000 people,” he says, “prepare for it to be done for a million people.”
That’s good news for an entrepreneur who grew up in boxing. (George Sr. sits on the board of EveryBodyFights.) Foreman III worked at his father’s training camps, counted his rounds, tied his shoes, sat watching him day in and day out. “It was very much in my blood,” he says. “But I never did it myself. Then when I was 25, I was overweight and my brothers had been teasing me because I had never been a varsity athlete. So I got them all on a conference call and I said, ‘If I fight in one amateur boxing match, will you guys stop it.’ So I started training, and I’m kind of obsessive when I start something.”
Now he’s obsessive about taking his one gym and turning it into a national fitness brand. To help do that, he’s embracing technology, because brick-and-mortar locations aren’t enough. Hence, new trainers at his gyms get certified via the BOXFIIT trainer app, which launched in February. (In August, EveryBodyFights will launch the BOXFIIT fighter app, for customers.)
That may sound counterintuitive—how can someone learn to run an in-person fitness class by completing tasks on their phone? Foreman says it’s more rigorous than it sounds: a potential trainer has to submit a video in which they perform, and then teach, every movement or action that will come up in class. Foreman views and grades every one of them.
In fact, he says it’s superior to the two-day, in-person training certification programs that have become popular in recent years. “You can’t learn that stuff in just two days,” he says. “Maybe in two weeks. But you can do it at your own pace. We spit out a better trainer remotely than those programs do in person.”
Could EveryBodyFights be the next Soulcycle, Flywheel, or David Barton Gym? If both George Foremans have anything to say about it, yes—and maybe bigger. To be sure, success isn’t automatic in this space: Planet Fitness had a disappointing IPO last year, and SoulCycle has had to delay its own. But Foreman III says the best advice his father gave him in the business world was to think big. “Don’t do this for 1,000 people,” he says, “prepare for it to be done for a million people.”
