Gym in Columbus on Prague. Raketa Columbus: the second club of the chain of innovative fitness centers
The second club of the Raketa chain has opened in Moscow near the Prazhskaya metro station. It covers an area of 2700 sq. m, 1100 of which are reserved for the gym.
As in the first club of the Raketa Mari chain, we have a new urban fitness club format. Open functional spaces with a bright futuristic design, like in a nightclub, almost complete absence of staff. New club members independently register online on the website - in the future, money for renewing the subscription is automatically withdrawn from the card. Access to the club, towels and lockers is provided using a personal fitness bracelet with an identifying fingerprint. All these innovations are combined with a unique atmosphere created here that motivates to play sports.
The gym is the place where the main activity of the club is concentrated. The gym is equipped with premium equipment from American brands Life Fitness and Hammer Strength. In total, 170 pieces of equipment are installed here, and 70 of them are cardio equipment.
The hall is designed in the corporate style of the Raketa network: walls of dark shades, bright color combinations, zoning of the hall according to the purpose and complexity of the exercise equipment (zones are visually highlighted in color), a trainer's stand with large TVs and the famous ticker with motivating phrases.
Installed in the cardio zone here Treadmills, exercise bikes, elliptical cross-trainers Life Fitness Activate and Integrity series.
Zone strength training equipped with Hammer Strength Select stacking machines that provide a natural, biomechanically correct trajectory of movement. There are also Hammer Strength Plate-Loaded machines; multi-station and adjustable crossover Life Fitness Signature Cable Motion designed for performing functional exercises. For those who prefer training with a barbell, HD Athletic racks are installed.
To make it easier for newcomers to join training process, the club offers free classes with a trainer, dedicated to the most relevant topics: proper nutrition, acquaintance with gym And correct technique performing exercises, developing programs (for women, express training for the whole body, etc.).
Another factor that supports motivation to work out in the gym is high-quality musical accompaniment. Famous Moscow DJs play here every weekday evening. The club has already created its own music label, Raketa Music. A playlist of workout tracks can be downloaded from iTunes or listened to on soundcloud.com.
Training from independent studios, called satellites here, is also attractive. On the territory of Raketa there are small “clubs within a club”: each studio rents a separate room, originally decorated in accordance with the type of training.
Studio "Zhara" conducts high-intensity interval training. A special system of classes is planned for each day. different groups muscles, including cardio and strength training. You can burn 1000 calories in one workout here!
Raketa also offers training from the Atmosfera studio (strength, cardio, functional classes, dance classes, yoga, Pilates, stretching, myofascial release, etc.) and the famous Moscow martial arts club Tiger (Thai boxing, Brazilian jiu-jitsu, grappling , boxing, MMA, judo).
And the most innovative component of the club is a fitness bracelet created by Raketa together with Alfa-Bank. It not only identifies the client, giving him access to the club and lockers, but also allows him to pay for additional club services and can be used as a bank card in any place where the MasterCard PayPass system operates. In the future, it is planned to introduce a fitness tracker function into the bracelet. The bracelet will be able to fix motor activity, amount of sleep, measure pulse - all this information, along with financial information, will be available in the mobile application.
“Rocket” constantly comes up with something new and original. For example, each club visitor can take a red or green bracelet at the entrance, depending on his mood. A green bracelet with the inscription Online is for those who want to show that they are open to communication, and a red one with the inscription Offline is for those who today are focused only on training.
As for prices, the cost of a monthly subscription is 1,500 rubles (six-month and annual subscriptions are not provided at Raketa). Moreover, there is a special offer for students - a 50% discount!
Raketa Columbus is a club created specifically for an active, advanced audience. All its advantages, together with the technologies presented, motivate you to train and achieve results.
In addition, the club has been awarded the prestigious international status of an official Hammer Strength training center: a selection of strength equipment allows professional athletes to be trained here.
Tikhon Kosykh decided to make money from sports in 2008, when he sold his stake in a construction company. He founded a chain of gyms, left the project, unsuccessfully invested in sports-related Internet startups, and in January 2017 opened the fitness club of his dreams: cheap, automated and large, with a capacity of 600 people (and a DJ plays there in the evenings). Raketa is conceived as a network: one more club will open one of these days, and within three years there will be at least 17 of them in Moscow and the region.
Like in Germany
Kosykh sold his share in the construction company Land Technologies after the 2008 crisis. As an experiment, I decided to get into the sports business and in 2009 opened the “Physics” club, after which I went to Europe and the USA to get acquainted with manufacturers of exercise equipment. In Germany, an entrepreneur saw automated McFit fitness centers: by saving on staff, clients received access to high-quality sports infrastructure for only 19 euros per month.
This idea infected me. “I decided that this is exactly what is missing in Russia,” Kosykh recalls.
Returning to Russia, he tried to turn Physics into a club with a similar concept, but the idea did not take off. Firstly, not everyone had bank cards, and according to the plan, all payments should be non-cash. Secondly, creating an electronic accounting system was too expensive. Tikhon realized that it was too early to automate the management of the club, and decided to sell season tickets like everyone else - through agents. He studied “physics” for four years: by the end of 2014, when there were five fitness clubs in the network, Kosykh left the project.
I didn’t want to leave, but a new investor appeared. The partner suggested that I either buy out his shares or sell my share. Now I don’t regret that I sold it and got the money,” says Tikhon.
Founder of Raketa Tikhon Kosykh
Kosykh does not disclose the amount of the deal. He invested some of that money in several fitness startups. Among them was the Kazan “Classfit” for the online sale of subscriptions to the city’s gyms - it turned out that “in the regions no one needs this at all.” And Wemble - search network personal trainers and fitness clubs that will let you work out (they didn’t let you in).
A year later, I realized that simply online business in this area is not effective: you need to combine the Internet and offline. So I decided to create new project in the market of affordable and technologically advanced fitness clubs.
Contactless fitness
The first Raketa opened in January 2017 in the Mari shopping center in Maryino; the premises took six months to equip. Within the first two weeks, more than 1,000 people signed up for the club. The second Raketa will open on February 25 in the Columbus shopping center near the Prazhskaya metro station, and five more will appear before the end of the year.
The concept included everything that could not be created in Physics. The development of the IT platform cost 5 million rubles. Programmers have been working on it since February 2015.
A pass, a key to the lockers and a payment instrument - a bracelet based on contactless technology - are issued upon registration.
Fitness club Raketa
Clients purchase memberships and additional services, such as personal training, at personal account Online. A subscription for the first month costs 4,500 rubles, and then 1,500 rubles per month. Nowadays, the system of annual subscriptions is widespread, but many people can afford monthly payments. more people, Kosykh is convinced.
Kosykh plans to keep prices low by saving on staff: since all services are arranged online, the club employs only a few employees. But they didn’t skimp on exercise equipment: for the first club, they purchased 200 of them (including 70 strength ones) from the American companies Life Fitness and Hammer Strength for almost 100 million rubles.
To make the club customer-friendly, Tikhon divided the space into several areas, fenced off the cross-fit area, installed an electronic information desk and vending machines with water and snacks. The hall was equipped with shelves with sockets for charging gadgets and even took care of the quality of selfies that clients would take.
Fitness club Raketa
In other fitness clubs, the light falls from above, and you always have bruises under your eyes in the photo. And we have light from below - and you look much better.
And on weekday evenings, Raketa has a DJ who plays tracks depending on the mood of the audience.
Money and investments
In August 2016, Raketa attracted 320 million rubles of investment from a “fund from neighboring countries” (Kosykh does not name it) - the money was used to open the first two clubs. This year, Raketa plans to conduct a second round of investments and, in the next three years, expand the network to 17 clubs in Moscow and the region, and at the same time launch a franchise in the regions.
Kosykh decided to locate in large shopping centers in order to obtain a large area at attractive rates.
The crisis drove out all the tenants, especially on the upper floors, and a good fitness club attracts up to 1,500 people a day, and on weekdays, and not on weekends, like most cinemas. In the near future we will see shopping centers compete with each other, inviting fitness club operators. Diners munching in food courts will see others working out and become inspired by the idea themselves.
Raketa will rent out some areas to so-called satellites, for example, yoga studios, boxing trainers and other teachers. According to the plan, the studios will rent rooms in Raketa for one-time classes: this is cheaper than renting a separate room.
Fitness club Raketa
A similar system was invented for personal trainers: they work freely as individual entrepreneurs and pay a monthly rent of 50,000 rubles (but if you conduct 150 training sessions per month, you don’t have to pay it). Individual lesson, which can be purchased on the Raketa website, costs from 500 for 30 minutes to 3,000 rubles per hour. The trainer sets the prices for his services himself and cannot change them during the month. At the fitness club in Maryino, 8 trainers work under this scheme.
In the coming years, the Russian fitness market will grow at least five times, Kosykh is sure. - Today in our country 3.5–4 million people play sports, and potentially this is an audience of 15 million people.
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Fitness club "Kometa.fit" (Columbus) is a revolution in the world of fitness. A unique format that combines affordable prices with high-quality infrastructure, traditional types of fitness with current sports trends. New payment concept, organization of space and opportunities for development.
Photos of the club
Prices are current as of April 2018.
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