A fitness class costs 299 yuan. Post - 90s fitness instructors visit the elderly at home to lead them in fitness activities.
Three months ago, 77-year-old Grandpa Liu, who lives in Beijing, wanted to start exercising. When he was young, he was a sports enthusiast. In his 50s, he would climb mountains with his colleagues; in his 60s, he would go for a long-distance run once a week. At the age of 70, he was diagnosed with lung cancer, and his son no longer felt comfortable letting him go out for exercise alone.
It seemed that with each passing year, a new door to activity closed on him, and he felt frustrated.
To meet his father's exercise needs, his son visited several gyms in the neighborhood to ask if they could accommodate the elderly. Without exception, the young coaches at the gyms showed a polite kind of timidity - they were afraid to take on senior members. What if something went wrong?
It has to be admitted that when an elderly person wants to try fitness, the difficulties outweigh the opportunities.
Most gyms are designed for young people. You can find elderly people exercising in the pavilions downstairs in the neighborhood, on the fitness trails in the park, or in the square dance groups. But if they want to do some strength training beyond walking, it's hard to find a way.
By chance, he found on social media that there was an institution in Beijing specializing in home fitness services for the middle-aged and elderly, founded by two post-90s young people.
Take a slice of the silver-haired market
Li Xuan founded Chaoyang Fitness a year ago. At that time, he had just quit his job in the e-commerce track of a large Internet company. Since his family was in the housekeeping service business and had many initial elderly customers, he wanted to test the waters in the booming silver-haired economy market, which was touted as a blue ocean.
Data from the National Bureau of Statistics shows that at the end of 2023, the population aged 60 and above in China accounted for 21.1% of the total population - almost one in every five Chinese people is over 60 years old. According to the prediction of the China Research Center on Aging, the current scale of China's silver-haired economy is about 7 trillion yuan, accounting for about 6% of GDP. Undoubtedly, this is a big piece of the pie.
In such a huge silver-haired market, how can one get a share?
After investigation, Li Xuan found that the current forms of the silver-haired economy in China are blooming in fields such as middle-aged and elderly short dramas, nutrition and health care, tourism, catering, and interest learning, while the fitness track remains a blank - the reason is simple. "Fitness is a tough thing. People are willing to spend money on eating, drinking, and having fun. But when it comes to sweating it out in exercise, they'll hesitate." The only thing remotely related to "exercise" might be the senior dance halls.
Pure fitness services for the middle-aged and elderly are extremely rare. But from a health perspective, exercise is a "potential necessity" for the elderly.
The fact is that the older people get, the more likely they are to be troubled by muscle loss.
"Most elderly people don't pursue big muscles, low body fat percentage, or a beautiful figure. Those are what young people want. They exercise to prevent excessive muscle loss and maintain their normal living ability. But currently, there are few services on the market that customize training programs according to the fitness needs of the elderly," Li Xuan said.
In 2022, Li Xuan accidentally injured his leg while playing paragliding. He visited several hospitals in Beijing and finally got to know Gao Ruijun, a professional rehabilitation therapist from the former Shaanxi Provincial Sports Team, through a friend. Gao Ruijun runs a personal rehabilitation studio, and most of his clients are middle-aged and elderly people. Li Xuan recognized his rehabilitation techniques and talked to him about the entrepreneurial idea of senior fitness. The two hit it off.
Gao Ruijun's personal rehabilitation studio
At first, they planned to build a commercial gym exclusively for people over 45 years old.
From the perspective of a rehabilitation therapist, Gao Ruijun believes that an "elderly-friendly" offline training space is very necessary. Because rehabilitation is not a one-time service where "you come when your body hurts and it'll be okay after a massage." It is a long-term and continuous process. "Basically, 90% of people need exercise to complement rehabilitation, especially the elderly. As people age, muscle degeneration is inevitable, and problems may recur. The purpose of rehabilitation is to maintain their normal living ability, and it cannot be separated from regular exercise training."
They specifically went to Shanghai for an inspection. According to a report by China News Service, Shanghai was the first city in China to enter the aging population stage and has the deepest degree of aging. For this reason, Shanghai is extremely advanced in terms of elderly welfare. Since 2024, the Shanghai government has supported the establishment of senior gyms in various sub-districts and neighborhoods, specifically designed for people over 60 years old. With government fund support, the monthly fee for senior members is only 99 yuan, which averages out to only 2 or 3 yuan a day. This kind of welfare is a national first in Shanghai.
Li Xuan visited several senior gyms and was directly shocked by the financial resources here. The gyms are equipped with isokinetic strength training machines specially prepared for the elderly (a kind of constant-speed strength equipment to prevent injuries); intelligent rhythmic platforms with a built-in tremor function that can help the elderly do passive training and accelerate gastrointestinal peristalsis; there are even muscle relaxers prepared for disabled elderly people, and elderly people who have been paraplegic for many years can rehabilitate here.
Shanghai senior gym, picture source: the official website of the General Administration of Sport of China
Naturally, these machines are very expensive, with a purchase price of 10,000 to 20,000 yuan each. It's definitely beyond the affordability of a small private business like his. "I can only envy after seeing them."
Out of consideration for reducing the initial cost, he had to temporarily abandon the idea of an offline gym and decided to start with home services. Previously, he had studied with Gao Ruijun for two years and participated in professional rehabilitation therapist training for joint rehabilitation patients, and obtained the IFBB/IBFA international fitness coach certificate. Their planned model is that the professional rehabilitation therapist Gao Ruijun will conduct body posture, joint, and muscle strength assessments to customize training programs for customers; then Li Xuan will act as the home coach, charging 299 yuan per session.
But in practice, he found that "Who on earth said the silver-haired economy is vibrant? Why can't I feel it?"
Deal with the children who "entrust their parents"
In September 2024, Chaoyang Fitness was founded, and its main promotion platforms are social media platforms such as Douyin and Xiaohongshu.
The first person to contact them was a 40-something career woman. The reason she wanted to exercise was long-term knee pain, mainly for rehabilitation. The second person who called was a 50-something man. As soon as he called, he asked, "Can you enhance my prostate function through training?" He mistook "home fitness" for a special service.
No one had ever heard of a home coach for the elderly. Li Xuan found that the biggest difficulty he faced was educating a brand-new market.
How can the elderly understand the necessity of fitness? In the perception of most elderly people, fitness is not a daily necessity. "Many elderly people only think about exercising to enhance their physical ability when they have physical problems. They want to walk and go out normally."
Unless there are major physical problems, they won't actively pay for fitness.
Even Li Xuan's own parents rejected his offer to help them exercise. "They just think it's unnecessary. I can still walk now. Isn't going for a walk downstairs every day also a form of exercise?"
The first step of home service: take a blood pressure test
Obviously, it's easier to change the minds of the children than to change the traditional concepts of the elderly.
In fact, most of the people who contact Li Xuan are children who want to sign up their parents for classes. They will describe their parents' fitness needs based on their own understanding. For example, their father/mother is too idle at home, and they want them to "move more."
But then new problems arise. "I can't directly contact the trainees. First, I don't know what the trainees' own wishes are; second, I don't understand their physical foundation; third, I don't know if there are any serious problems with their bodies that they themselves are not aware of," Li Xuan said. Some customers don't even show up and just want to give an address for home service. He firmly refuses such requests.
Just like parents who entrust their children, when facing the "children who entrust their parents," you also have to train yourself to read between the lines.
Strictly speaking, Grandpa Liu was Li Xuan's first "standard" elderly customer, and it was his son who found Li Xuan on social media. The son first bought 10 classes. When Li Xuan went for the first trial home session, he encountered a small setback.
Basically, Grandpa Liu's attitude was quite cooperative, but he also had a bit of resistance. The fitness courses Li Xuan provided didn't involve the kind of heavy lifting and weightlifting one might expect. In the first few classes, he only led Grandpa Liu to do simple limb stretching warm-ups, half squats, and weighted squats, about 4 or 5 movements. It should be noted here that the core purpose of the fitness plan customized for the elderly is to assist them in meeting their daily life needs. For example, if they need to carry a bucket of oil upstairs or put heavy objects on a high place, then the corresponding muscle groups involved in the arm-lifting movements need to be trained.
Moreover, most elderly people don't have the habit of fitness. Training always has to start with correcting the correct breathing rhythm and force application habits to lay a good foundation and prevent injuries caused by incorrect force application. As a result, in the early stages, each class feels quite basic and cannot give the elderly a sense of achievement in exercise.
Grandpa Liu doing squats
Li Xuan could feel that at first, Grandpa Liu didn't quite understand. "He thought these movements were too simple. When you asked him to squat down slowly and feel the leg muscles, he wouldn't listen. He thought, 'What's wrong with just standing up all at once? Isn't it the same?'"
Moreover, such a seemingly very simple class costs 299 yuan. It's inevitable that the elderly will have complaints.
The general public usually has two impressions of the middle-aged and elderly customer group: one, they are very fussy, and it's hard to satisfy them; two, they are very stingy, and it's extremely difficult to get money out of their wallets.
Unfortunately, these stereotypes are mostly true.
When dealing with these elderly people, their cooperation was very low at first. Li Xuan had to spend a lot of effort chatting with them, explaining the movements, and encouraging them. In a word, he either had to build a relationship with them and dispel their vigilance or make them understand the value of fitness - obviously, the latter is much more difficult than the former.
Most elderly people still uphold the habit of frugality all their lives and are reluctant to spend extravagantly on fitness. "Generally, northern families may want to save money for their children. The more they can save, the better. It's best if they can help their children," Li Xuan said.
A "trust war"
After accumulating several initial customers, Li Xuan and Gao Ruijun also gained some experience in reducing risks.
There are two types of customers they definitely won't accept: one is those with clear physical problems, such as spinal slippage. If the hospital can't handle it, how can they? The other is customers with extremely low cooperation. Many children have high expectations, but the elderly don't want to exercise at all. Forcing them won't have any effect.
Before the formal class starts, they will visit the elderly at home to conduct a detailed physical assessment. The items include basic height, weight, blood pressure, and heart rate indicators, spinal screening such as the Hoffman test (to detect upper limb reflexes), flexibility tests of the shoulders, thoracic spine, lumbar spine, pelvis, and knees, and ability tests such as thoracic spine rotation, squatting, forward and backward bending... It takes about half an hour to complete a full set of assessments. After each fitness session, they will issue a detailed training performance assessment report and send it to the children so that they can understand their parents' situation.
Everything is to ensure that the elderly trainees are willing and able to participate in the exercise. Even if this directly cuts off most potential customers, it doesn't matter. Controlling risks is still the top priority.
You know, most elderly people don't care about their bodies as much as young people do. After receiving more customers, Li Xuan found that for men, the problems may be concentrated in hip muscle loss and weak strength in the back of the thighs (the specific problems also depend on the nature of the occupation they were engaged in when they were young). For women, long-term housework pressure, such as sweeping and mopping the floor, and carrying heavy objects when going out to buy groceries, makes their lumbar spine and shoulders prone to hidden dangers. And when facing problems, they tend to endure them and downplay the seriousness.
A customer once came to them and wanted to buy fitness classes for his father. His father had just had a fracture surgery last year, and his knee still felt uncomfortable on the side and needed rehabilitation. But after Li Xuan and Gao Ruijun went to do the home assessment, they unexpectedly found that the father's problem wasn't very serious. He could fully recover with just rest after the surgery. The more serious problem was actually his mother - she had a mild lumbar disc slippage for a long time, accompanied by shoulder impingement. "She also felt pain, but she didn't say anything. For them, this kind of pain is just 'an old problem flaring up again.'"
