Working out well in Warsaw, (the regions next)

The World Health Organisation's 'Highlights on Health 2001' report on Poland, gave the percentage of adults who "maintain physical fitness by appropriate regular activities" as 10%. This compared quite unfavourably with close neighbours, such as the Czech Republic and Germany, in similar reports and is hardly a statistic to encourage anyone with ambitions to open a fitness club here, though Warsaw is starting to flex its muscles.

Statistics rarely tell the whole story and even during the Communist period there was a strong sub-culture of working out in Poland. Gyms in dingy basements, where mainly beefed-up men pumped away at masses of iron, were the norm then and still exist to this day but they are daunting places for most women and foreign residents. Alternatives have been slow to arrive, the first in the form of fitness suites in five-star hotels, catering only for the very rich. In recent years however, though till now overwhelmingly in Warsaw, a new breed of club has started to emerge: unisex, with one or two ex-pat members but attracting most of its clients from Poland's burgeoning middle-class.

Only in Warsaw
Spotless, air-conditioned, equipped with state-of-the-art machines and weights and usually a sauna, and offering a range of aerobics classes, these clubs have taken rigorous exercise from the basement and hotel, to space in shopping centres, office buildings and even apartment blocks. Such is the rate of growth, in the capital at least, that World Fitness Sales and Marketing Manager, Paweł Szostek, feels that in "two to three years' time the market will be absolutely full".
World Fitness, perhaps the most prominent player on Poland's fitness scene, with five clubs in hotels and class A office buildings, began business here eight years ago, though as yet operates in Warsaw only. The flagship centre in the Hotel Marriott is the biggest, with around 2,000 sqm and although its smaller clubs in Ochota Office Park and Mokotów Business Park offer membership fees within reach of some Polish incomes, for the most part, World Fitness operates in the upper echelons of the market. Some of this exclusivity is confirmed by its operations in the Agora office building, (home of Polish daily newspaper 'Gazeta Wyborcza') and Warsaw Financial Centre, membership of which is restricted to those working there. A sixth World Fitness club, based in the InterContinental Hotel, will be added to the chain soon and occupying floors 43 and 44, will have a comparable area to the one in the Marriot.

In the regions
World Fitness' plans for the rest of the country include nothing until at least 2004, when they are considering new clubs for Poznań and Kraków. "There has been no real comprehensive research into fitness in Poland, so opening clubs in the regions means taking quite a big risk. In the capital at least, it's easier to network and get a more substantial understanding of the demand that exists for fitness clubs," says Paweł Szostek.
It could well be, that the fitness operators who are active well outside the top hotels, will have a keener eye on the provinces in the future. Gymnasion, whose main club in the Ursynów suburb of Warsaw occupies around 2,500 sqm in the King Cross shopping centre, also runs two others in office buildings in the capital and will be opening for the first time in Katowice, in Katowice Business Centre in January. Studio Calypso, situated in the small Europlex mixed-use centre on Puławska in Warsaw, has been running its 600 sqm. club since February 2000, and according to Marketing Manager Grzegorz Nawacki, will continue to look to such centres as bases for any further clubs. Because, as Nawacki says, "our club is quite full ", they are currently looking for investors so that they can expand and have a business plan to that end.

Slow process
Cities such as Kraków and Poznań may be hosting new Studio Calypso clubs relatively soon, though Nawacki adds, that building up a fitness club enterprise in Poland is "a very slow process". One reason he gives for this, is that buildings such as Europlex have only exisited in Poland for the last three or four years and many owners view fitness clubs less favourably than shops. "We have limited capacity," he says, "there is only a certain number of people fitness clubs can cater for and so we pay lower rents as a result". Shoppers come and go, fitness club members stay and train, in other words.
Fitness clubs can struggle to gain admission to top class office buildings as well, according to Jarosław Gorzko of developer Skanska Property Poland. The low margins they accrue, mean they often have to try and negotiate lower rents than are on offer and where they do occupy space, it's in buildings where owners use them as "a marketing tool to attract other tenants," he says. The loud music that is inseparable from aerobics is also unlikely to endear clubs to hard-working office staff. "I can't imagine any highly-reputable organisation taking up space in a building where there is a full-scale fitness centre," says Gorzko, though he adds that "the very largest buildings" might find it viable to lease space to one.

*On a more optimistic note, Grzegorz Nawacki reckons that Studio Calypso's growth in popularity over a relatively short period suggests that, "there will be far more clubs around Poland in a few years."