One of the most popular elements of strongman is the strongman weekend group, aka Strongman Saturday or Strongman Sunday. Strongman is much more fun to train in a group, and it’s significantly easier logistically when you have multiple people to help with setup and cleanup. Weekend programs are many people’s first introduction to strongman, and it’s a mainstay of the sport.
Setting up a Strongman Saturday program is an excellent community-builder and revenue-generator for a gym. But in order to reap the benefits of the program, you have to be thoughtful about how you set it up and how you run it.
Step 1: Organization
Every successful program requires structure and leadership. For Strongman Saturday, this applies to how you set up your individual sessions and how you coach while they’re happening.
You need to deliver value. Always. There’s nothing wrong with a loosely-organized group of people training strongman together. That works out fine if you want to lift with the group and don’t plan/want/need the group to be financially profitable. But if you’re a business owner and strongman group training is part of your revenue stream, you need to deliver enough value that your sessions are worth spending money on.
Here are a couple best practices:
- Hold the sessions on the same day and time every week. This allows people to build it into their normal routine.
- Plan to actively coach the sessions yourself. It’s fun to lift with the group, and you can always hop in from time to time. But remember that people aren’t paying for you to lift with them; they’re paying you to coach them.
- Have a plan going in. Three events is usually a good number for a weekend session. Choose them ahead of time, and be ready to coach them.
- If you have more than 6-8 people – especially if there’s a wide variety of weight classes or ability levels – it’s smart to break them into groups. This makes the session more efficient and keeps things moving so people aren’t just standing around.
If you plan to make money from your strongman weekend program, you also need a way for people to register and pay for it. Make this as easy as possible for you and for them. A registration link is generally simplest if you have the software to support it. If you don’t, it’s still a good idea to have people register/pay ahead of time. You can do something simple like have them Venmo/PayPal you ahead of time to hold their spot. Whatever method you choose, be consistent from week-to-week and person-to-person, and give clear instructions on how to register.
Step 2: Spreading the Word
Once you’ve set the foundations for an organized and effective program, you need to spread the word and invite people to show up!
Social media is the name of the game here. Use your channels during the week to talk up the program and invite people to participate. Make sure you include a very clear call to action (ie “sign up using the link in our bio”) and make it super easy for people to register.
During the weekend session, capture lots of video and photos to share to your accounts. Show groups of people learning and having fun and playing with cool strongman implements. The easiest thing to do is put together a quick Strongman Saturday recap post for your feed/stories/whatever when you get home from the session.
Tag people in the posts! Most people love to see photos of themselves doing awesome things, and they often want to share those photos with others in their network. So shout out everyone and give them the opportunity to celebrate their strength and share it with others (which in turn spreads the word about your program).
Weekly emails are also a great tool. Keep a running email list of everyone who has expressed interest in the program or previously attended a session. Email that list on a set schedule every week – so people know to look for it – and include details about the session for the coming weekend as well as any additional things you want to share.
The weekly email is also a great opportunity to promote upcoming competitions you (or your friends) are organizing, talk about programming options that you offer, and spread the word about strongman-related events in the community.
Step 3: Programming
Programming and weekend sessions go hand-in-hand. Group sessions on the weekend are great… But what about the other 6 days of the week?
Programming allows you to provide guidance for your group session folks even when they’re not at your gym. A smart program will help them make more progress from week-to-week, and it makes sure their bodies are recovered and prepared for a heavy event training day.
We’ll dive more into programming structures, sales, etc. in another post. For now, know that offering a clear and effective program that pairs with your weekend sessions is a great way to build your strongman community, increase revenue, and make the most of weekend training sessions.
Step 4: Competitions
This is a big one, and it’s certainly not necessary for building a strongman program. However, if you are interested in promoting competitions, it can be a huge boost to weekend session participation and revenue.
Promoting a competition – especially one with implements you currently have access to – is a great way to draw people into your weekend sessions. Competitions give people a goal to train for, and they provide structure for your weekend sessions. It also boosts revenue because you’ll attract more people to the weekend sessions (to try the implements in prep for competition), be able to sell competition-specific programming, sell registrations for the competition itself, and introduce more people to your community.
How to Price It
Ideally you want your Saturday program to generate money. The money comes from a couple places:
- Fee to participate in the sessions
- Gym-supplied programming that includes/plans for weekend sessions
- Generating interest in competitions (which leads to competition revenue and potentially programming revenue)
Because you’re actively coaching your sessions (see above), you should be paid for your time and expertise. Yes, it’s fun to coach. Yes, it’s fun to jump in with the team and train. But if you’re reading this post you’re probably forging a career or side hustle in the industry, so we have to think about the financial side of things as well.
Setting prices is a much longer discussion for another post. It should be a thoughtful decision based on math and your exact circumstances. That being said, as a general rule – if you’re actively coaching and organizing the session – you can charge between $20-30 per session. You can offer discounts for people on your programming or members of your gym. But make sure your time, expertise, equipment, and other costs are being covered every time you host a weekend session.
Remember that weekend program revenue is just a piece of the strongman revenue stream for your business. Make sure you’re creating clear links – for you and your athletes – between direct registrations for weekend sessions as well as related purchases of programming, 1:1 coaching, and competition registration fees.
Conclusion
A successful strongman weekend program is a great way to build community and add revenue to your business. From a financial perspective, it helps tie together your program offerings and provides multiple branches of revenue when you combine it with other options like programming and competitions.
From a community perspective, Strongman Saturday is really a highlight of what makes strongman so great. You have the power to create an environment in which people learn, get stronger, support each other, and forge lifelong relationships. All financial pieces aside, this should be the #1 focus of your program. If you are a thoughtful leader and create a meaningful and valuable program, the rest of it falls into place.
Take Your Weekend Program to the Next LevelWhen you build a successful strongman community, you contribute to the global strongman community, and we all win. So we want to help you do it! We’re here for all your email questions, a free 15-min coaching call, or longer 1:1 consulting sessions. Just email strongmandottraining@gmail.com with any questions or to set up a call.
