Is artificial turf bad for your health? Artificial turf, the green plastic surface designed to look like grass, has been sold to homeowners as a clever compromise: a green-looking yard without mowing. It survives heavy use and, in dry places like the Middle East, California, or Texas, it can replace thirsty lawns. Yeah it paints a nice verdant green cover in dry places or under trees where the grass won’t grow, but if you start using it, it’s function is just tricking your eyes.

Related: how to safely remove artificial turf from your backyard

But the evidence points to a more inconvenient truth we’ve known all along. Synthetic grass can bring real health and environmental trade-offs.

Some risks are immediate and obvious. Artificial turf can run dramatically hotter than natural grass in full sun, increasing the risk of heat stress, dehydration, blistering, and burns to your skin. Real grass respires and releases moisture throughout the day. Plastic grass does not. Field measurements and reviews have repeatedly found synthetic surfaces can become dangerously hot, especially in direct sunlight. A 2024 study in Frontiers in Sustainable Cities noted that artificial turf can reach very high surface temperatures and worsen urban heat island effects. They’ve even proposed ways for cooling it down in cities using water, the very thing that astroturf was designed to solve.

A 2025 evidence summary from Canada’s National Collaborating Centre for Environmental Health reached similar conclusions, highlighting heat, skin abrasions, and exposure concerns. “Human exposure to chemicals from artificial turf playing fields can be reduced by washing hands and avoiding infill and fibre ingestion by infants and children,” they write. Is that something we want kids playing on?

Even Bryan Johnson, the longevity entrepreneur known for trying to optimize every aspect of his life so he can live forever, recently posted on X: “Guys, I’m an idiot. All this time I’ve spent trying not to die, I had toxic turf in my backyard.” He added that artificial turf contains crumb rubber infill made from recycled tires. His phrasing was dramatic, but the underlying point stands: you can spend heavily on health while surrounding yourself with industrial plastics.

He wrote:

“Artificial turf contains crumb rubber infill made from recycled tires, which leaches chemicals including PFAS, heavy metals, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. These compounds are linked to hormone disruption, carcinogenicity, and systemic inflammation. I don’t know how I missed it. It makes me question my basic competence in life. What gets me is that I try so hard to survey the world of potential idiocy. Then I find out there’s a monument to idiocy sitting right in front of my face that I was blind to. I’m removing the turf, yet I’m still stuck with this seemingly unsolvable problem of how to not be an idiot.”

Then there are injury patterns. Several reviews have found that some lower-extremity injuries, especially certain non-contact injuries, may be more common on artificial turf than on well-maintained natural grass, though results vary by sport, footwear, and field condition. Sliding on astroturf can cause turf burns, which are not only painful but can become infected if not treated properly. Children and athletes are particularly exposed, as they fall, slide, and breathe close to these surfaces.

The harder question is chemical exposure. Many synthetic fields use crumb rubber infill made from recycled tires. A growing body of research shows these materials can contain metals, volatile organic compounds, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), phthalates, PFAS, and other chemicals of concern. A 2024 systematic review in Environmental Health Insights and a study by the NIH found potentially hazardous concentrations of chemicals in turf infill and fibres, with exposure pathways raising concern, especially for children.

The NIH writes, “Cancer risks were identified for ingestion exposure to PAH in children with pica and heavy metal exposure via dermal, inhalation and ingestion pathways. Non-carcinogenic risks were identified for the ingestion of cobalt in a child spectator and the ingestion of arsenic, cobalt, thallium and zinc. Potentially hazardous concentrations of chemicals were found across both artificial turf infill and artificial turf fibre samples; bioaccessibility of these chemicals varied.”

A 2022 review in Environmental Pollution was more direct, concluding that chemicals identified in artificial turf include known carcinogens, mutagens, and endocrine disruptors, while noting that human evidence remains limited and under-studied.

It would be false to say science has definitively proven that artificial turf causes cancer in everyday users. It has not. Science is methodical and slow, and long-term effects take years to measure. But it would also be false to say the issue is settled or harmless. Even the US EPA’s crumb rubber research effort, updated in 2024, did not conclude there was no risk; it characterized exposures and acknowledged that a full risk assessment is still incomplete. In plain terms: chemicals are present, exposure happens, and long-term health impacts are not fully understood.

The ecological problem of astroturf

Artificial turf is essentially a plastic carpet. It sheds fibers and dust that can enter drains, soils, and waterways, contributing to microplastic pollution. It also seals the ground. Natural grass supports soil life, cools the air, and participates in ecological cycles. Plastic turf does not. It does not cool like vegetation, does not support biodiversity, and does not age well. When it wears out, disposal becomes another environmental problem.

In arid cities, synthetic turf is often marketed as a “green” alternative to water-hungry lawns. But replacing one ecological problem with a heat-trapping plastic surface is not real progress.

Alternatives include native planting, shaded courtyards, permeable surfaces, gravel, regional groundcovers, and climate-appropriate design.

Artificial turf is not automatically poisoning everyone who touches it, but it is not a neutral surface either. Plant local species, use permeable materials, and design for life—not plastic.

Related Green Prophet reading:
Microplastics in plastic aligners
Qatar’s World Cup groundwork and the logic of synthetic surfaces
More Green Prophet coverage on microplastics

The post Is artificial turf bad for your health? appeared first on Green Prophet.

The question of what constitutes safe artificial turf has generated substantial debate among athletic directors, facility managers, and sports medicine professionals. While synthetic playing surfaces have transformed the landscape of organized athletics over the past six decades, the conversation around player protection has matured significantly. Today, independent university research and standardized testing protocols offer concrete answers about which technologies and design principles deliver the strongest safety outcomes for athletes.

A comprehensive analysis published by AstroTurf experts on turf field safety identifies several critical factors that separate premium synthetic surfaces from standard installations. Chief among these factors is infill stabilization technology, which addresses one of the most persistent challenges in synthetic turf performance: the migration of granular materials away from high-traffic areas toward less-used zones of the playing field.

The Science Behind Impact Attenuation

Player protection on any athletic surface begins with the field’s ability to absorb and disperse kinetic energy when athletes fall or make contact with the ground. The American Society for Testing and Materials developed GMAX testing protocols that have served as the industry standard for measuring this impact attenuation capability for more than three decades.

Under ASTM F355 Procedure A and ASTM F1936 specifications, a 20-pound missile is dropped from a height of 24 inches at multiple locations across a field, measuring the surface’s response to simulated athlete impacts. The maximum allowable GMAX value stands at 200 G’s according to ASTM guidelines, though the Synthetic Turf Council and NFL mandate more conservative thresholds of 165 G’s for professional applications. Premium synthetic turf systems targeting natural grass equivalence maintain GMAX values between 90 and 115 G’s, matching the shock absorption characteristics of well-maintained professional fields.

The significance of these measurements extends beyond abstract numbers. Research indicates that approximately 17.5 percent of concussions sustained by student athletes result from contact with playing surfaces rather than collisions with other players. This statistic, drawn from a study conducted by researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, underscores why consistent impact attenuation across an entire playing surface matters for athlete welfare.

University Research Validates Safety Technologies

The most credible safety claims in the synthetic turf industry trace back to peer-reviewed research conducted at accredited academic institutions. AstroTurf has invested millions of dollars in research partnerships that have produced measurable improvements in understanding surface-athlete interactions.

The University of Tennessee’s Center for Athletic Field Safety represents what researchers describe as the single largest athletic field research effort ever undertaken. The facility comprises 60 small-scale athletic research fields constructed from various playing surfaces, enabling scientists to conduct both mechanical and human studies under realistic playing conditions. Dr. John Sorochan, Distinguished Professor and Director of the center, has stated that the facility’s primary goal is to make fields safer at all levels of play.

The collaborative research has directly influenced product development strategies, steering the company’s offerings toward matching and surpassing professionally maintained natural grass. This natural grass benchmark serves as the gold standard because it represents the surface characteristics that athletes’ bodies have adapted to over generations of organized sports.

Independent research conducted at Michigan State University examined biomechanical properties across multiple synthetic turf systems. The study identified the proprietary AstroTurf RootZone technology as “the most influential variable” in reducing torque transmitted to lower extremities because it “limited cleat contact with the infill and provided a less compacted infill layer.” These findings carry particular weight because the research was independently funded, eliminating potential bias from manufacturer-sponsored studies.

How Infill Stabilization Addresses Surface Consistency

Infill migration presents one of the most significant maintenance challenges in synthetic turf management. During intensive play, traditional surfaces experience movement of sand and rubber granular materials from goal areas, sidelines, and other high-use zones toward the perimeter of the field. This migration creates unpredictable surface behavior precisely where athletes need consistent conditions the most.

The engineering solution developed by AstroTurf involves crimped nylon fibers that create a three-dimensional matrix beneath the playing surface. This matrix encapsulates infill material and prevents migration during play, maintaining uniform shock absorption and traction characteristics across the entire field throughout the product’s operational lifespan.

When infill remains stable, athletes experience predictable surface behavior that allows confident planting, cutting, and directional changes. This predictability reduces the unexpected variations that contribute to lower extremity injuries, including ACL tears and ankle sprains. The consistency factor proves especially important during the later stages of games when fatigue may compromise an athlete’s ability to compensate for inconsistent surface conditions.

Testing Standards Beyond Basic Impact Assessment

While GMAX testing provides essential information about shock absorption, a comprehensive safety evaluation requires multiple assessment methods. The FIFA Quality Programme establishes rigorous testing criteria that examine ball roll, bounce characteristics, energy restitution, vertical deformation, and rotational resistance alongside impact attenuation measurements.

FIFA’s 2024 update to its Test Manual introduced the Head Injury Criterion 1000 test, which assesses a surface’s ability to mitigate high-energy impacts by establishing a minimum critical fall height requirement of 0.60 meters. This addition reflects growing attention to head injury prevention in professional athletics and demonstrates how international governing bodies continue to raise performance benchmarks.

The synthetic turf manufacturer based in Dalton, Georgia, subjects its systems to One Turf testing protocols, which industry professionals consider the gold standard in comprehensive turf evaluation. This testing framework aligns with standards from FIFA, World Rugby, and the International Hockey Federation simultaneously, ensuring products meet requirements across multiple sports applications.

In-house testing facilities equipped with Berlin Athletes machines, QUV weathering testers, and accelerated wear simulators enable validation before field deployment rather than relying solely on post-installation assessment. This pre-market validation approach ensures innovations translate to real-world performance improvements.

Advanced Fiber Technologies Contribute to Player Protection

The fibers comprising an artificial turf surface play a substantial role in safety performance beyond their primary function of supporting athletic activity. Modern fiber technologies address concerns ranging from surface abrasiveness to thermal management.

Sharkskin technology reduces skin friction, addressing turf burn concerns that have historically affected athletes in sliding sports. The integration of antistatic additives reduces static electricity by substantial margins compared to standard fibers, which helps maintain infill stability during dry conditions when particle migration would otherwise increase.

Temperature management innovations respond to concerns about surface heat, particularly for facilities in warmer climates or those with limited shade coverage. Advanced polymer formulations incorporating thermal shield technology reduce the rate at which fibers absorb heat, enhancing athlete comfort while simultaneously extending fiber lifespan by reducing thermal degradation.

Antimicrobial treatments eliminate bacterial odors and prevent microbial buildup on fiber surfaces, contributing to healthier playing environments, particularly relevant for multi-use facilities where surfaces experience intensive daily use across various user groups.

The Multifactorial Nature of Athletic Injuries

Responsible discussion of playing surface safety acknowledges that turf represents one variable among many in athletic injury prevention. Player conditioning, footwear selection, weather conditions, game intensity, fatigue levels, and individual biomechanics all contribute to injury patterns observed in organized athletics.

Dr. James Voos, Chair of the Orthopedics Departments at University Hospitals and Case Western Reserve, has emphasized the importance of educating athletes on proper footwear selection while noting that schools must adequately maintain turf surfaces to appropriate quality standards. This perspective reflects the consensus view among sports medicine professionals that injury prevention requires attention to multiple interconnected factors.

Premium synthetic surfaces provide consistent, predictable playing environments that remove surface variability from the equation. Athletes who trust the ground beneath them can focus on performance rather than compensating for unpredictable conditions, which itself represents a safety benefit beyond measurable shock absorption metrics.

Manufacturing Quality and Vertical Integration

The consistency of safety characteristics depends on the reliable execution of design specifications throughout manufacturing and installation processes. AstroTurf controls all manufacturing and installation processes from initial polymer formulation through finished field installation, ensuring quality control at every production stage.

This vertical integration approach guarantees that only specified ingredients enter final products, addressing questions about material composition that facility managers increasingly raise during procurement decisions. Third-party analytical chemistry laboratories have tested raw materials and finished goods, with results showing contaminant concentrations below detectable limits.

Climate-controlled prefabrication facilities allow precise assembly of field sections before transport to installation sites, minimizing variables during field construction and ensuring consistent quality regardless of geographic location or weather conditions during installation periods.

The trajectory of synthetic turf development points toward continued integration of advanced safety features with sustainable manufacturing practices. For athletic administrators evaluating surface options, the research emerging from university partnerships offers clear guidance on which technologies deliver measurable protection for the athletes who ultimately depend on these decisions.

The post What Makes Artificial Turf Like AstroTurf Safe? University Research and Independent Testing Reveal Key Factors appeared first on Green Prophet.

Tel Aviv’s seaside marathon set for February 28, 2025

The Tel Aviv-Yafo Municipality announced that the Tel Aviv Marathon, Israel’s largest sporting event, will take place for the 16th time on February 2025. Early registration at a discounted rate is now open for all runners—both amateur and professional—across various race categories until December 1, 2024. Marathons in the Middle East are best enjoyed in the winter when the weather is cool. Get our best marathons guide here.

Over 40,000 runners are expected to participate in one of the five scenic urban routes throughout the city, including along the iconic coastline: Marathon (42.195 km), Half Marathon (21 km), 10K Race, 5K Race, and a Kids’ Mini Marathon on February 26, 2025 (800 meters and 1.2 km).

“The 2025 Tel Aviv Marathon will return with full force in February 2025,” says the city’s mayor Run Huldai. “This marathon is an important event for our city, a city that breathes and lives sports. In these times, we need to remind ourselves that sport is not only for physical health but also as a remedy for the soul. Through sports, we allow ourselves to both feel pain and find comfort, and we remember that both body and spirit have enabled us to overcome many challenges before.

“This time too, we will succeed and rebuild, and we are proud to continue hosting this unique marathon that unites the entire nation. I invite everyone to join us, and I hope we will soon see our hostages back with us, together.”

How the Tel Aviv Marathon will be Sustainable

• Reducing bottle usage by over 60% by using of biodegradable cups at water stations along the course, The empty 1.5-liter bottles used for refilling will be collected and recycled after the race.
• Recycled non-woven fabric bags will be used for race kits. During registration, participants will have the option to either purchase an official running shirt from a leading brand or receive a discount on the registration fee, thereby reducing demand on the global textile industry. If the plastic non-woven bags are the ones they are mentioning, note that these bags are not green at all and usually take more plastic with them to landfill.
• “Pay It Forward” a social green project will also take place as part of the marathon, inviting all participants to bring sports clothing (excluding shoes) for donation on race day. The donated items will be laundered, folded, and given to charities for distribution to those in need
• Reducing print as part of its green initiative, runners will receive the marathon guide in digital format, and all promotional signage along the course will be recycled at the end of the event.

There are so many ways to do sustainable tourism in the Middle East. Get our Middle East marathon guide here.

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Instead of letting areas like sport create a bridge to peace, an Algerian judo contestant at the Paris 2024 Olympics says he would rather withdraw from the Olympics rather than compete against an Israeli.

Messaoud Dris says he will withdraw from his first match, as he was selected to compete against Israeli judoka Tohar Butbul  at the 2024 Paris Olympics in Paris, according to the French news outlet Ouest France reports.

While neighboring Morocco has a peace agreement with Israel, the Algerian athlete says he will forfeit the match as his country does not recognize the State of Israel.

Doing so he could be banned from future competitions by the International Olympic Committee and the World Judo Federation, says Ouest France.

Butbu is ranked ninth in the world in the Under 73kg division and part of the Israeli team that won bronze at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. Dris has not won a world championship but in 2024 was the number 1 for the African Senior Championships Individuals and in 2023 won first place in the Arab Games. It may be that this is the end of his career anyway and without a chance of winning. This political forfeit could boost his career in the Muslim country that praises and honors people who make political statements against the Jewish country.

Three years ago the Algerian judoka Fethi Nourine refused to face an Israeli opponent (there was no war at the time) and was suspended. We are noticing a pattern with Algeria.

In October 2017, when an Israeli Tal Flicker won gold in an international judo championship in the UAE officials refused to fly the Israeli flag and play the Israeli national anthete. The UAE also banned Israeli athletes from wearing their country’s symbols on uniforms. The list goes on – see Wikipedia which offers a special page on this issue. Do you think it’s the right thing to do or the wrong thing to do? Should areas of life like Sport and Art rise above conflict and personal politics?

Related: Palestinians swing dance with Israelis for peace

In Iran, you can get into political hot water – and into jail or worse – for other reasons. Remember when the Iranian speedskater was threatened with violence when she didn’t wear her head covering in competitions?  Iran’s sports ministry issued a short statement emphasizing that athletes require “maintaining Islamic values in sports competitions” and added that Mardani, pictured below, had not competed in clothing approved by the state.

Are values in sport a universal idea? Are different countries with different religious values permitted to inject their values on a competition that started in Greece 3000 years ago and called the Olympiad? Consider that British rider Charlotte Dujardin was banned from the Olympics, and her career over, after video of her whipping horse “like an elephant in the circus”. Where does the ethics and morality committee stand on countries who send participants that refuse to player others or who inflict Draconian ethics on women? Should there be a collective country ban on Iran, Algeria and England for a certain period of time or should it just be individuals who get disqualified?

Does an individual reflect the country or the country reflect the individual?

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Rory McIlroy is an Irishman who loves being green –– and not just the color. While playing in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates this fall, he pledged he would become more green ecologically speaking by slashing his environmental footprint. Golfers who play professionally are jetsetters by nature, but that doesn’t mean they can’t do more to cut down on carbon emissions from private travel, the greens they play on and through the hotels they choose to stay, he tells Golf Digest when he was in Dubai. 

He told the magazine, “Two years ago, after I won in China – at the WGC-HSBC Champions – I flew back home privately. It was just me on the plane and a massive sense of guilt came over me. This can’t be good, I thought.” 

But the golf odds weren’t against him: “When the R&A and the USGA brought out their distance insights report, the best thing they spoke about was the sustainability aspect of golf and how to make the footprint of courses smaller. So that is certainly something we can all do.”

The GEO Foundation is involved in making golf more sustainable and for McIlroy’s part he is offsetting his travel by buying carbon credits, which cost him about $200,000 extra every year.

“It’s something I have a conscience about and I take it seriously,” he told the golf lifestyle magazine. “Especially when you see some of the weather events that are happening. This isn’t something I’ve talked to many of the players about. But for my own peace of mind, I know that when I do travel I’m not doing it to the detriment of the world that we live in.”

We’ve covered golf going green on Green Prophet in the past and while golfing isn’t the most famous Middle Eastern or Levantine sport it is something that tourists typically like to do when they visit Egypt, Jordan or the United Arab Emirates. 

Some newer housing developments in Cairo, for instance, have mirrored suburban or gated communities in the United States, and the Cairo development New Giza most likely would not have impressed the Pharaoh with its luxurious views to the pyramids from the golf green.

Greens in the Middle East should be brown 

Golfing started as a favorite pastime in the British Isles where climate ensures steady growth of thick grasses, and then over the years with colonization and now globalization the sport had migrated to the Middle East where it was originally played on sand flats and putting surfaces called “browns”. Today, hotel developers and real estate investors want to recreate the greens of the British Isles which are largely unsustainable in a very dry Middle East, with countries such as Jordan and Yemen being among the most water insecure in the world. 

It’s hard to imagine lush greens in these locals and luckily some creative golfers have opted to grow browns and not greens as we see today at Jordan’s only golf course, still in operation even after Covid hit so many businesses poorly. 

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Of all the world’s largest organized sports, there is one that is most affected by climate change induced by global warming. Cricket, the old British sport that has been exported to India, Australia and the Caribbean Islands will be most hard hit by the ravages of climate change such as flooding and heat waves, recent reports suggest. Not even the best cricket tips can save the sport that is worried about its future, highlights the Climate Coalition.

The Sustainability Report started reporting on the news a few years ago in 2018, that from May to July was the UK’s hottest three-month period ever on record. And in the same period the next year, in 2019, when England and Wales were hosting the ICC Cricket World Cup, there was epic rain. 

In India it was worse: “The worst floods for a century in the southern Indian state of Kerala killed 361 and affected an estimated five million more, while a heatwave in Karachi killed 65. And while the Caribbean was spared the worst of the Atlantic hurricane season after multiple disasters in 2017, the pressure in that region grows year by year,” noted the news outlet.

It’s an interesting play: normally we talk about climate change and flood risk to homes or agriculture and our food supply. But since Covid-19 hit, we can also now tangibly value how so much leisure and culture plays a large role in our lives. Without sports as we know it, and the movie industry, and dining out, life is not the same.

For those part of the industry, The Game Changer report (links to PDF) by the Climate Coalition explores this often discussed issue: how climate affects sports and games. Not only in detail about what is happening already, but it explores what will happen in the future and how sports leagues and clubs can invest in climate-proofing their sports.

Athletes and team players easily influence the next generation from the way they talk to the shoes they wear. The report highlights a few take-home ideas that sports teams can take as action items on themselves. 

How sports clubs can impact climate change

1. Sports clubs and their governing bodies and sponsors all need to reduce carbon emissions and other environmental impacts. If you’ve seen the latest Ted Lasso series on AppleTV, there was an interesting event where the team decided to cut its sponsorship from Dubai Air, a made-up airline, that was investing in exploiting oil fields in Nigeria. One of the team members from Nigeria led the protest. 
2. In the real world, The British Association of Sustainable Sport (BASIS) can provide guidance to help teams along with sponsors and fans lead the voice in sustainable practices on the field, court, slope and court.
3. Governments across the world need to play their part and encourage more public transportation to live sports venues. They also have to help people achieve homes that are more climate resilient and less energy intensive.
4. Be part of the Paris Climate Agreement means taking actions to stop the climate rising by another 1.5 degrees centigrade. If you come from an affluent country, help those from poorer nations access the tools and infrastructure they need to meet climate goals set globally.

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It’s challenging to grasp just how much the world has changed from COVID-19 — Zoom happy hours, takeout instead of dining in, working from home, and squeezing in virtual workouts. To say we’ve reached a new frontier is an understatement, and small businesses in the fitness industry have had to pivot operations to stay open.

But there’s a glimmer from the chaos: An industry once contingent upon physical attendance is now finding footing online. That said, the transition hasn’t been easy.

Now, as lockdowns ease and we endeavor outside again, it’s time for another massive pivot in your marketing strategy. How can you promote your fitness studio post-covid? Starting a newsletter, has been proven hands down, the best way to keep your customers engaged. Among our services we use Cactus Mailing: Direct Mail Experts. 

It’s going to take hard work, but you’ve got this. In this comprehensive guide, we’ve outlined the best strategies for promoting your fitness studio after COVID. 

Ready to reboot? Let’s get moving.

Narrow Your Focus and Niche Down

There’s no need to be an expert at every form of fitness. Plus, there are already mega fitness chains like Planet Fitness occupying that catch-all space. Since 86% of consumers base their purchases on brand authenticity, your best bet is to niche down on your specialty. 

If you’re a yoga instructor, niche down on a type of yoga, breathwork, or technique you’ve mastered. Niching down shapes your marketing strategy to attract your ideal clientele.

Who has mastered this flawlessly?

Kayla Itsines, the fitness influencer who basically wrote the (e)book on how to niche down and own your expertise. Kayla created Bikini Body Guides (BBG), 28-minute workouts designed for women to yield maximum results with short sessions.

The fitness guru took the method she used for her own fitness and monetized it into a multi-million dollar business. By niching down to address bodyweight strength training, Kayla attracted a massive following — and wealth. 

What’s standing in the way of you achieving the same success? A pandemic? Not anymore.

How to niche down:

• Don’t aim to be a jack of all trades fitness studio, be a master of one. Choose the niche you’re passionate about and could teach all day, every day.
• Start brainstorming workouts within your niche. Cover the basics in your niche, and zoom in to discover sub-niches.
• For every piece of content you create, add your unique spin. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel, but you do want to be original and recognizable.

Tell Your Story to Motivate and Relate

The pandemic has made us a little more skeptical, a tad wiser, and pickier about which businesses we support. A HavasGroup report found that 77% of consumers choose brands that share similar values. To gain trust, be transparent and vocal about your personal fitness story. 

Have you been passionate about fitness since you were a kid and learned to box in your uncle’s garage? Maybe you have a weight-loss story or live, breathe, and eat health and fitness. Your story doesn’t have to be groundbreaking or sensationalized, but it has to be honest to make an impact.

Sharing the why behind your business motivates people who’ve had similar experiences to join the movement. When you stand for something bigger than just one workout, you start a conversation.

Just ask Tally Rye, a London-based fitness instructor and health coach. Tally shares non-diet, weight-inclusive fitness programs that inspire people to “train happy.” The underlying message across all of Tally’s content is her story: ditching diet culture to find a happy way to train and love your body.

The message is clear, consistent, and honest. And that’s why over 100k people follow along!

How to tell your story:

Take pen to paper and write out the crucial moments in your story that led you to a career in fitness.

• If you’re not a writer, no sweat! Find freelancers on sites like Upwork or ClearVoice and outsource the task to a pro. 
• Share your story on every channel, including your website pages, social profile descriptions, offerings, products, and captions. 
• Keep it simple, be honest. Open up about the difficult circumstances or adversities you overcame to get where you are now. If that doesn’t apply, share the path that led you here. 

People don’t just buy products and services; they buy stories they can relate to, so don’t be afraid to share yours.

Create a Library of On-Demand Video Lessons

Creating an on-demand video library sets you up to reach the broadest audience within your niche. The more diverse the library, the broader an audience you’ll reach. 

Stay within your niche, but diversify lessons to reach every fitness level. There’s no use attracting a beginner if you’re only posting advanced cardio classes. If your studio focuses on HIIT workouts, create an advanced series of 60-minute lessons and a beginner’s series of 30-minute lessons demonstrating each move.

Also, share videos that tackle sub-niches. If you’re a yoga instructor, create playlists targeting abs, upper body, and lower body. While you’re at it, why not offer a 10-minute wellness series featuring sessions for meditation, breathwork, and anti-anxiety poses? 

Head over to the Popsugar Fitness YouTube channel, where 5.48 million Youtube subscribers have free access to a rich library of on-demand video workouts. 

Covering everything from hip-hop to HIIT to targeted muscle training sessions, Popsugar has something for everyone while staying true to the integrity of their niche: fun, fresh, vibrant workouts.

How to make a fitness video library:

• Record fitness videos in bulk sessions. Block out 1-2 days a week to batch content until you’ve got a sizable stockpile.
• Create playlists for each video category so that viewers can explore specific areas of your YouTube channel.
• Optimize your channel and videos. Use a free keyword tool like KW Finder and include them naturally in the title, description, and tags.
• Have fun with it! The more engaged you are in your video and content, the more likely people will show up to your channel.

Pitch Your Offerings to Local Media Outlets 

Press coverage builds social proof and establishes your fitness studio as an industry leader. Plus, 92% of consumers trust organic media coverage more than paid ads. You’ll gain their trust by earning organic publicity, which also broadens your exposure.

Are you launching a new video series or offering virtual memberships? Write up a press release and send it to regional news outlets that feature local businesses, like this segment on KSBY News in California.

Tips for approaching news outlets:

• Use a free press distribution network like PR Newswire to find quality media leads known to feature small businesses.
• News outlets frequently lift copy directly from a press release and use it in their coverage, so make sure your press release clearly states what you’re offering.
• Include crucial details about your event or promotion, including date, website links, price, and why it’s worthy of publicity. 
• Share a little insight about your business (refer back to your unique story); that way, if you’re featured in a multi-business segment, your studio stands out.

Leverage Live Video on Social

There’s nothing like a personal training session to motivate your clients and build a connection. Well, in this post-COVID landscape, you can still do that with live videos.

Live video lets you knock down the screen to interact directly with your attendees. Encourage them to ask you questions and keep the communication active by addressing your viewers by name.

As you build attendance, create a daily 2-minute tutorial or weekly sweat session they can mark on their calendars. Live video is the closest we can get to a personal training session, and your viewers will show up pumped and ready to get moving.

Just ask Massy Arias, a fitness influencer with nearly 3 million followers on Instagram. Massy often engages her audience with Live workouts for all fitness levels. Viewers can join in for free beginner sessions, mobility and yoga flows, strength training, and warm-ups.

Toward the end of the video, she gives a call to action to guide viewers towards her paid 60-day strength and yoga program. 

How to Leverage Live for Your Fitness Studio

• Don’t be shy to jump on Live and start training with your viewers. Chances are, they’ll embrace the opportunity to get to know you better and join in.
• Leading up to your Live workout, tease the event on Instagram Stories, Facebook, and any social channels where you hang out. Promote it like an in-person event by leaving hints about the workout to get your audience pumped.
• Before you record, outline your routine and find an open, attractive space that sets the right tone for the workout, i.e., a lush indoor space for yoga or a bright room for cardio.
• While you’re recording, engage with your audience by asking them questions and interacting as if they’re working out beside you.
• As you conclude the workout, share the product or program you want to promote. Tell viewers about your fitness studio, a 30-day challenge, or a meal program. Whatever you’re promoting, you have viewers tuned in, so while they’re here, promote your services.

Monetize Behind The Curtain Content

Your business needs revenue to stay open, and fortunately, you don’t need a physical space to do that anymore. You can monetize exclusive content with apps like Patreon. The key is to incentivize your viewers to support you. How will you do that? By providing exclusive content that’s only available to your Patreon subscribers.

How to Monetize with Patreon

• Offer 2-3 subscriptions, and make each higher tear a more expensive investment. 
• Share snippets of exclusive Patreon content on your social channels to encourage your audience to subscribe.
• For a middle-tier subscription, offer bonuses like a 30-day meal plan or insider tips you don’t share in free content. Then up the ante for the premium subscription by offering monthly 1-1 coaching sessions to focus on each customer’s specific goals. 

By monetizing these higher subscription tiers, you’ll accrue revenue without any enormous overhead costs.

There are three membership levels, each under $10 a month, to make fitness accessible to all.

The lowest tier gives supporters access to the community page. The middle option offers monthly calendars, early access to programs and contests, and Live workouts. Lastly, the highest membership offers exclusive Q&A’s, plus all the perks of the lower tiers.

The beauty of this strategy is that you make the rules. Adopt this framework and apply it to your niche. The more you offer, the higher the subscription. 

Create a Referral Program

Before Coronavirus, digital marketing trends favored the new and unconventional. Now? We’re reverting to what has always worked: word of mouth. 

The 2018 Chatter Matters Word of Mouth report found that 83% of Americans offer word of mouth recommendations to their friends and family. How can you get existing clients to recommend your fitness studio?

Referral programs capitalize on the clientele you’ve already established. And when you make those clients happy? They’ll likely tell their friends about your fitness studio. Nudge them toward sharing by offering incentives for recruits.

You can easily implement a referral program for your existing members by offering rewards like 24 Hour Fitness. When members invite a friend to use a 3-day gym pass, they’re rewarded with a training session or in-store coupon.

But you don’t have to be a national gym chain to make this work because referrals work for businesses small and large.

There are a few ways to do this, but whatever method you choose, don’t skimp here because referrals will comprise much of your post-COVID fitness members. And if you want to expand with minimal investments that bring in sizable returns, let’s get people talking about you.

Referral program strategies:

• Offer a free 1:1 personal training session to existing members who recruit a new member. 
• Consider offering a free trial to your recruits, and while you have them, promote your Facebook group and online community that’s rich with free resources and exclusive access to new content.

• Launch a review campaign. Reviews are instant social proof. Incentivize them to leave a review by offering exclusive access to a private workout series or meal plan that gets them invested and singing your praises! 

While reviews aren’t a form of direct word of mouth, they work in the same way because 95% of customers read reviews before buying. 

When you combine referrals, reviews, and rewards, you create a word of mouth trifecta that builds revenue.

Repurpose Content Across Platforms

There’s no disputing the importance of content for business growth, but creating a steady stream of high-value content takes time. Repurposing content is kind of like juggling but way easier. It’s an effective way to stretch the existing content you’ve already created. 

Say you filmed a weight training video targeting specific muscle groups. You can create bite-sized content from one video for newsletters, Instagram Stories, Facebook posts, and more. 

Repurposing content saves you time and reaches your customers on various platforms. That’s especially beneficial if they happened to miss the original fitness video but caught your Instagram carousel post while scrolling the app after work. 

Need a tool to make repurposing your fitness content quick and painless? Try PosterMyWall, a free graphic design tool offering customizable templates for creating social media images, videos, and marketing graphics.  

Tips for repurposing fitness content:

• Review your existing video content. Think about how you can break down fitness videos into small, digestible pieces.
• Start with one video and branch off smaller content pieces for social media posts, infographics, or tweets.
• Rather than writing content from scratch, use an affordable transcription service like REV to transcribe your video’s audio into written text. Now you can use the text to formulate a blog post and social media captions.
• Cut short snippets from the full-length and share them on Instagram. Tell people to head to the link in your bio to see the full video.
• Snap screenshots of the video and post them to Twitter and Facebook.

Did you just create a dozen pieces of content from one video? You sure did! 

Cultivate an Engaged Community

With your business operating virtually, it makes sense to build a community for your members to interact with you and one another. One of the best ways to do this is by starting a private, members-only Facebook group.

The best part about this strategy is that it requires zero investment. There’s nothing to lose and everything to gain. If you’re tight on marketing funds, this is a great place to start. 

Offer exclusive access to your studio members and stimulate conversations by sharing new workouts, your favorite recipes, and tips for balancing healthy living at home. Take the time to interact personally with your members and show them that you’re a real human who cares about their progress and pain points. 

The goal is to make a fun, interactive, engaging space to grow your community like 305 Fitness, a dance cardio studio. The 305 At Home Facebook group is a private group where members chat about fitness goals, upcoming dance parties and motivate each other.

Tips for starting a Facebook group for your fitness studio:

• Encourage members to join your Facebook group. Tease them with exclusive content, real discussions, and exciting news.
• Ask new group members to introduce themselves in a post and share their goals and pain points.
• Post daily, respond to comments, and interact directly with your community to keep the conversations going.
• When you have an exciting product to promote, give your Facebook group members first-access — this will incentivize non-group members to join!

Choose a Monthly Theme for At-Home Fitness

You’re in a competitive industry, but there are ways to stand out. Rather than simply posting your content and recording fitness videos, personalize your program to keep it fun and lighthearted. 

Create monthly themes to engage your members and keep them interested in your content. Play around with themes like 30 days of crunches or Fit February. This strategy is another way to roll out new challenges that keep your clients motivated and participating year-round.

Because if you don’t, they might slip away or try another program. Adding that motivation boost will bring people back to participate and engage with the community.

Promote the monthly theme on your social profiles to encourage people to join your program, Facebook group, and jump in on the challenge.

Take it a step farther and ask members to take selfies of themselves participating in the monthly challenge and post it with a hashtag. This is a great way to build awareness about your fitness studio and recruit new members.

Fitness Themes in Action

A fitness theme can be as simple as targeting a specific area for one month or as dynamic as this Go The Distance challenge from iFit. For October, members participated in distance goals to reach major miles by running, cycling, or rowing. On October 31, members who completed the challenge received an exclusive reward.

Get the creative juices flowing and have fun trying different themes. Follow the format from iFit and reward members with free merch. When you get people involved, they’ll come back for more.

Offer Gift Certificates and Pre-Packaged Deals 

No one’s in the dark about how the pandemic has hit small businesses, and people are eager to help. Loyal clients will likely jump at the opportunity to purchase packages, gift certificates, and pre-paid memberships because they’re invested in your business.

There are several ways this can work, and you don’t have to do them all. Instead, try one and see how it goes. If it works well, keep at it. If not, try another strategy.

• Roll out pre-packaged personal training deals to use after the pandemic or when restrictions lift in your area. If you offer these sessions at discounted rates, people are more likely to buy them and cash in when they can meet up with you for a 1:1 session.
• Offer gift certificates for your clients to buy for friends and family, like the ClassPass gift card; a redeemable cash value people can apply to future membership plans.
• Discount your membership fees. It’s not an ideal solution, but it will help to keep your business afloat in the interim. 

Host a Fitness Workshop 

Regardless of fitness level, people always have questions that only pros like you can answer. There are probably several questions you regularly hear, right? 

How many calories should I eat every day? 

Am I breathing right during cardio? 

What’s the proper running form? 

Think about the repetitive questions you get and compile them into a workshop for your members. 

A workshop isn’t much different from a video series or fitness regime — you’re still instructing people. The difference is that you’re providing a comprehensive overview of a specific issue or problem in a workshop.

Workshops provide value that you can charge for or offer for free to your members. If non-members want to sign up, by all means, charge a fee for the workshop, and they might end up paying for a membership to your fitness studio.

Let’s look at a great example from Yoga with Adriene. 

In her free 30 Day Yoga Journey, Adriene instructs attendees on how to breathe consciously. On the sign-up page, she offers access to her free community platform and a downloadable calendar corresponding to the 30 days of breathwork students will learn.

The program is hyper-focused on one area of yoga that’ll benefit an attendee’s yoga technique. By offering this workshop, Adriene will likely garner new followers and subscribers to her online yoga studio.

Apply the technique:

1. Design your free workshop. You can choose to post a video series on your website, YouTube, or a third-party portal like Skillshare or Udemy.
2. Create an opt-in page with sales copy that illuminates the benefits of attending the workshop (including access to your private Facebook group).
3. Promote the workshop on your website and social media channels to build hype and encourage sign-ups.
4. Direct attendees to a higher sales funnel like training sessions or membership to your fitness studio.

Get Moving On Your New Marketing Strategy

The writing is on the wall: this pandemic changed the fitness industry. Brick and mortar gyms have had to migrate to virtual offerings to accommodate their members and maintain revenue. 

In this sink or swim era, fitness studios have found new life online and shown what can be achieved in dire straights.

As you pivot your marketing strategy and maneuver this new digital frontier, focus on reaching people on a more personal level. Share high-quality content across all platforms to promote your fitness studio and increase brand awareness. 

Most importantly, make fitness accessible, relatable, and convenient for your members, and you’ll experience a new type of digital business that’s pandemic-proof. Now go grind out your new strategy!

The post A Complete Guide To Marketing Your Fitness Studio — Post-Covid appeared first on Green Prophet.

It’s 2020 and the world is slowly becoming more environmentally conscious. For most of us, it’s about creating better habits in our day-to-day lives with positive, sustainable changes.

The thing is, when was the last time you considered this when it came to choosing the place for your next date? I know I haven’t and chances are, it’s the same way for most of us.

In this article, I’m about to give you 7 fun date ideas that are also a positive for the environment. After all, the more areas of our lives where we can make this a priority, the smaller our footprints can be.

Heck, if Las Vegas can work on going green, I don’t see why it’d be a struggle for the rest of us!

Go on a picnic

Not just any old picnic but a zero-waste picnic, at that. If you’ve never tried this before, the challenge in itself can be part of the fun.

While being truly zero-waste might not be practical, the closer you can get the better. Rather than disposable plastic cutlery and cling wrap, find better solutions. Reusable containers, regular cutlery and beeswax wraps all make a big difference.

You could even take it a step further and make your own beeswax wraps too! If you’re a little intimidated by sitting face-to-face for a couple of hours you can always look up a great list of flirty questions to ask that will keep the conversation going.

Cook at home together

You can either integrate this into your picnic plans or do it as a standalone activity, but either way it’s a great option. It’s fun to get creative with the food you’re taking and it also helps to keep the costs down.

On a recent date, I invited her over to make vegetarian sushi together. We experimented with different ingredients, packed it all up and went for a walk to a local lookout to enjoy it.

I find it far more interesting than just ordering food at a restaurant and it’s nice to work together as a team, too.

With around ⅓ of the world’s food going to waste each year, even the act of cooking can help reduce our total waste!

Go for a bike ride

Bikes are one of my favorite eco-friendly ways to get around downtown and explore new things. Get out in the sunshine, exercise and enjoy the sights and sounds around you.

This makes it a fun date idea too. You can explore so much of the city together and stop at anything that takes your fancy.

Visit the local farmers market

Farmers markets are a great way to support local and buy plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables. They’re about so much more than local produce though, often packed with local artwork and performances too.

This makes for a fun date with so much to see and do. No matter what you’re both into, you’re bound to find something of interest.

Since farmers markets tend to have a strong focus on sustainability, you can also do it with a clear conscience. You might even come across some helpful products or ideas you hadn’t thought about before.

Walk to your favorite vegan or vegetarian restaurant

Whatever your stance on the topic, reducing meat consumption does have a positive impact on the environment.

You don’t have to “be a vegetarian” to eat at one of these restaurants and they’re a very simple substitution to make. Believe it or not, both of these diets are about more than just eating salads.

Walking to and from the restaurant is a great opportunity to work off some of your meal and chat too. I find it to be a relaxing end to a date and the perfect time to escalate if things are going well. Far better than driving two cars there and finding parking spots.

Explore new parts of your city together on foot

Just like cycling around downtown, doing it on foot can be a great option as well. Unlike in a car where you’re so insulated from your surroundings, you have the opportunity to slow down and take it all in.

Enjoy the sights and sounds around you, appreciate each other’s company and make it up as you go. In fact, my favorite way to do this is to start with a single plan and let the day unfold on its own.

Since you’re both making it up on the fly, the possibilities are endless and nobody feels pressured for time. Depending on the weather and fitness levels, you can really cover some ground this way.

I did this last year and a casual Saturday stroll turned into lunch, healthy snacks, dinner and over 20 km of walking! Things were going so well, we were enjoying our time in the sun and neither of us were in a hurry to leave. Personally, I’d consider that a successful (and eco-friendly) date.

Pick an outdoor sport you can both enjoy

If physical activity is something you’re both down for, outdoor sports are ideal. You’re getting some fresh air and exercise and don’t have a need for gas or electricity.

For some added fun you can both find something you haven’t done before and figure it out together. There’s something very disarming and humbling about being bad at a new activity which I find to be helpful to dating.

So long as you keep a positive attitude and remember that it doesn’t actually matter if you’re any good, things go well. The idea here isn’t to show off your skills at a sport, it’s about spending time with your date and doing something unique.

You just never know, today might be the day you find your new favorite activity and you get to do it with someone else.

–

There’s seven simple, fun date ideas to get you started. Once you start to build these eco-friendly habits into your dating life as well, it’ll slowly become second nature.

We all have a responsibility to do our part and it’s really not that hard to do it in this context either.

The post 7 Great Eco-Friendly Dates appeared first on Green Prophet.

The America’s cup yacht race is known for its billionaires and legal controversy as often as it was known as a test of the world’s best sailors. This world’s longest-running sporting tradition goes back to the summer of 1851 when legend has it that when the thirty-meter schooner America beat the Royal Yacht Squadron’s yacht by four minutes, Queen Victoria asked who was second and was told, “Ah your majesty, there is no second.”

While past America’s cup contenders pushed the legal boundaries of the sport and often made for lopsided victories, Larry Ellison’s plan was to bring back one-design racing while simultaneously pushing technological boundaries.

Both Emirates Team New Zealand and Oracle’s Team USA can be congratulated for making this a sporting event worth watching. Like a nautical Cirque du Soleil, the athletic crews danced atop their wind-powered flying machines.

The crew wrestled against six tons of wind power to move the massive sails with every tack and gybe. The amount of human power the grinders could supply limited the sail area for the boat’s maximum wind speed. The twin hulls and thirteen story high sails seemed perilously balanced atop fragile hydrofoil dagger boards.

As a sporting event it couldn’t be better, but why can’t we be so inspired towards other goals such as ending world poverty? What if only a fraction of these vast sums of money invested in this most exclusive of sports were invested in efficiency and environmentalism?

Maybe it isn’t such a stretch to imagine that one day AC-72 hydrofoil catamaran technologies might make it into the mainstream and begin powering ordinary sailboats, ferries, cargo ships and oil tankers. Technology tested in previous Americas cup races such as safety gear, steel, aluminum and composite hulls, winged-sails and even the Australian-designed winged-keel which won the 1983 America’s cup, can be imagined as a predecessor to the hydrofoil dagger-boards of 2013.

These futuristic looking AC-72 catamarans envisioned by Larry Ellison’s team easily outrun many of the oil-powered spectator boats and ferries in San Francisco Bay. In fact the chase boats required to keep up with these beasts require 1200 horsepower outboard motors. Let’s have a quick look at the specifications and capabilities of these yachts:

Class AC-72 Specifications
Type: Catamaran
Length Overall: 86 feet
Length Waterline: 72.2 feet
Mast Height: 131.2 feet
Hull: Carbon Fiber
Daggerboards:Hydrofoil
Weight: A flying 13,000 pounds
Total Sail Area (Fixed wing mainsail plus gennaker): ~6200 sq feet
Top Speed: 44.15 knots (50.5 mph) which is between 1.2 and 1.6 times the speed of the wind.
Mpg: Oil? We don’t need any oil, we’re going back to the future!

So, the AC-72 weighs 13,000 pounds but it almost flies above the water as it sails faster than the wind that powers it, using no oil.

What’s the catch?

First of all, AC-72s are expensive at about $10 million per boat. This high cost reduced the number of competing boats even before the Luis Vuitton elimination races were completed. AC-72s also have a narrow wind envelope. Several of the races were scuttled because the wind was either too light or two heavy. One of Oracle’s AC-72 boats capsized and was destroyed in high winds and Artemis’ AC-72 broke apart in a structural failure which caused the unfortunate death of one of its crew.

These catastrophes led the race committee to set a maximum wind speed of just under 25 knots. If you’ve ever sailed, you’ve probably sailed in more than 25 knots of wind. But the AC-72 doesn’t have the option that even your AMF Sunfish sailboat had when the wind became too strong. The massive fixed-wing sail cannot be lowered or reefed or otherwise reduced in area. If the wind exceeds the maximum safe wind speed, you don’t have many options to stop your boat from doing this:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RAGHFr4xzK4[/youtube]

Sailing is an enjoyable pass-time for some and a competitive sport for others, but will it ever be a practical way of moving people and products around our world? It certainly was in the nineteenth century. Sail-powered clipper ships easily outran newer steam-powered ships in the crossed the ocean at an average speed of 19mph.

If that sounds slow, consider this. Because of increased oil prices and recognition of the high cost of bunker fuel pollution, modern cargo ships are averaging only about 20mph. In order to save costs and carbon emissions, some are traveling as slow as 14mph.

Find some video or photos of hydrofoil sailing boats such as the AC-72s, AC-45s and Moths or even venerable clipper ships such as the Cutty Sark. Now look at a “modern” cargo ship or oil tanker and tell me which one looks like the future we should be striving for?

Image of Emirates Team New Zealand’s AC 45 foiling under California’s Oakland Bay bridge from Shutterstock

The post Flip America’s Cup Loss Into an Environmental Win: Here’s How appeared first on Green Prophet.

What motivated me to photograph the event was the long-held suspicion that long distance running for pleasure (or pain) is a highly decadent activity in terms of energy consumption.

Imagine the calories consumed, not only prior to the marathon itself but also in the many miles of training that make the final run possible. If everyone on the planet started pleasure-running, the consequences for global food production would be terrifying.

But the reality is that it requires a certain, some might say extraordinary, level of affluence before one can consider using valuable food energy for such purposes.

The pleasure of running is usually explained by the release of endorphins, the hormone that counters pain, which seems to suggest, as I have always suspected, that running is a form of sadomasochism.

But, of course, many also use running as a method of weight-control and physical conditioning, necessitated by modern inactive lifestyles and excessive food and drink consumption.

Personally I prefer swimming, but maybe we should all explore more constructive ways of keeping in shape. Vegetable gardening?

Note from the editor: this photograph is part of a series called “Consumption” that seeks to document consumerism’s impact on the environment. From resource extraction and commodity production all the way down the supply chain to retail stores and waste processing facilities, Richard artfully examines what nature has come to mean in a world that depends on buying stuff.

The post Running in Dubai: Sadomasochism for the Rich? appeared first on Green Prophet.