If Jerry Pugh’s plan comes to fruition, Workout Anytime might be America’s next big gym brand.
Pugh, who was Workout Anytime’s largest franchisee with 19 locations, became the 24/7 gym brand’s new CEO earlier this month following a deal that saw him take an ownership stake in the company alongside private equity firms Skyline Global Partners and Peninsula Capital Partners.
As CEO, Pugh is aiming to take Workout Anytime from 200 to 400 locations over the next five years. Looking even further down the line, he believes the brand could reach as many as 1,000 locations in the United States as it targets small and mid-size markets that often go underserved by big-box gym chains.
Pugh sat down with Athletech News to share his vision for Workout Anytime’s future, including why the Southeast is central to the brand’s expansion strategy.
The following conversation has been lightly edited for clarity and length.
Athletech News: How did you go from Workout Anytime’s largest franchisee to its new CEO?
Jerry Pugh: I actually started as a member of Workout Anytime in 2012. I’m an entrepreneur so I immediately inquired about buying the location I was attending. That ended up not happening at that time. When I moved to Homestead, Florida, I called (Workout Anytime) senior vice president of construction) Randy Trotter and told him I’d like to consider opening a gym there. We found a site, and that’s where it all started. We followed the playbook and were super successful early on. We opened 19 locations, all of which have been converted to corporate locations.
During the COVID shutdown, I mentioned to Steve (Strickland), who was CEO at the time, that if the opportunity ever came up, I’d like to at least talk to him about ownership. So I planted the seed. We talked about it on and off over the next few years. In April 2024, we signed an LOI with private equity firms (Skyline Global Partners and Peninsula Capital). Here we are a year later after closing on that deal.
ATN: How were you able to convince PE firms like Skyline Global Partners and Peninsula Capital Partners to come on board?
JP: We pitched private equity on the strength of Workout Anytime. It had basically been growing organically – there hadn’t been a ton of marketing spend or focus on growing the brand. It’s pretty remarkable that we’re at 200 locations today through organic growth. When they saw my vision of how we could take this to another level, they were very interested because they too saw the potential. One of our focuses is going to be marketing and development for franchisees. We hired a new CMO who’s got a lot of industry experience on the franchising and fitness side.
ATN: As CEO, what’s your vision for the future of Workout Anytime?
JP: Over the next five years, our goal is to double our footprint from 200 to 400 clubs. I think we could grow to 1,000 locations in the U.S. over the next 10 years with the right momentum and strategy. We’re going to look for larger franchisees that want to open between 5 and 20 units. We’re open to smaller deals as well, but we’d like for anyone who comes in to at least be able to open three.
ATN: What markets/regions of the country will Workout Anytime target for growth?
JP: Our model has been super successful in smaller markets. We want to find areas that are underserved (by bigger gym brands) where our owners can get a good return. So we’re going to focus more on B and C markets, although we have a model that’s competitive in A markets.
We’ll continue to focus on (all) areas of the U.S., but we really want to focus on the Southeast. When I pitched to private equity, I told them our focus is to become the “Southeastern Conference of fitness,” so we’re going to focus on the states that have schools that play in the SEC. Right now, we don’t have any presence in Mississippi or Louisiana, and we don’t have much of a presence in Oklahoma or Arkansas. We’re growing in Alabama, but there are still a ton of areas in Alabama where we can grow. And while we have a lot of clubs around Atlanta and in Tennessee, there are still a lot of small markets we can enter. We’re also focused on Florida. We can probably put 200 more Workout Anytime locations in the Southeast alone.
ATN: Workout Anytime has invested heavily in wellness and recovery in recent years. Why is this a focus for the brand?
JP: Our larger-footprint clubs all have premium wellness suites, but even in our smaller locations are required to put in a wellness space because that’s where fitness is today. We’ve figured out that people want to do more than just come in and lift weights. They see the importance of things like saunas, red light therapy, massage chairs, Therauguns and cryo. Our premium membership sales have increased significantly for clubs with wellness suites compared to our legacy clubs.
ATN: Gyms have changed quite a bit over the past few years, including the rise in strength and functional training spaces. How do you expect the gym floor to continue evolving over the next few years?
JP: I think we’ll continue to see less cardio; it seems like people are doing cardiovascular stuff outside now more than ever. We’ll also continue to see more strength training, including things like deadlift platforms that used to be reserved for bodybuilders and are now used by everyone. We just launched our new abs and glute zone, which contains several different machines that all focus on abs and glutes. I think that trend will stick around.
I think we’ll also see prices continue to go up in the industry. For a long time, it was a race to the bottom for everybody. Now, we’re realizing across the board that we have a great product, but we were cheapening it.
