An Equinox fitness center in Manhattan in August 2017.JEENAH MOON/The New York Times News Service
Would you pay the price of a new car every year for the chance at a longer life? One luxury gym is hoping so.
It’s hardly a leading economic indicator, but at a time of stubbornly high prices and crippling personal debt levels among average consumers, it is one of those head-scratchers that gets your attention.
Equinox, the privately held New York-based luxury fitness company with gyms in Toronto and Vancouver, unveiled last week a new premium membership plan that costs more than US$40,000 a year.
That’s a helluva gym membership. But wait, there’s more. The fine print says the gym fee isn’t included in the program’s US$36,000 base price. That’s an extra US$500 a month, which adds up to US$6,000 a year, valuing the entire package at US$42,000.
Members in the “Optimize by Equinox” program, which launches in New York before moving to other cities, will get personalized health plans that include lab tests for more than 100 biomarkers such as thyroid function, cancer detection and Alzheimer’s risk. The plan also includes personal training with Equinox coaches three times a week, nutrition and sleep coaching and monthly massage therapy.
Now, many of us appreciate the benefits of a regular fitness program and no one begrudges someone who wants to live a healthier life and rig the odds in favour of living longer. Data must be telling Equinox there is a chunk of its affluent customer base interested in ponying up for such a premium-priced plan.
Still, the timing of the announcement is curious. While inflation has backed off somewhat from the 40-year highs of a year ago, it’s still hovering around 3.5 per cent in the United States, higher than the long-term average. Some economists expect it to creep back up to 4 or 5 per cent this year.
Prices for essential goods remain high and credit-card-debt levels are at near-crisis levels as maxed-out consumers struggle under the weight of interest rates that have reached highs of 25 to 30 per cent. Many big retailers are slashing prices across the board.
Add to that widespread layoffs in many sectors and there is a significant amount of insecurity and even desperation among regular folks. Kevin Hassett, former chair of the U.S. Council of Economic Advisers, this week called it consumers’ “Thelma and Louise moment” – the no-win choice facing the 1991 film’s stars of being shot by police or driving off a cliff.
Despite the paradox of launching a premium-priced product into economic headwinds, there are many interesting inferences to be drawn from the Equinox initiative.
First, it shows there’s money to be made in the fast-growing longevity sector. There is a universe of consumers for whom a few more years on the planet is worth paying about the same as the average price of a new car every year or mortgage payments of US$3,500 a month.
Second, in the U.S. anyway, the mix of services under the Equinox plan exposes the chronic weakness of the health care system. If there is brilliance in the Equinox plan, developed with lab-test startup Function Health, it’s that it combines fitness basics with services that have typically been the purview of medical professionals.
And finally, this sort of extravagance is a natural brand extension of our look-at-me culture. The super rich and famous have their own personal trainers, chefs, concierge doctors and plastic surgeons on speed dial, but for the social-climbing Vanderbilt wannabes, this is the next best personal brand flex.
Think about someone who posts on social media that after their premium-priced workout, they’re driving the latest EV model to their place on Nantucket or in Muskoka. It’s the ultimate social climbers’ trifecta.
For chronic couch potatoes unwilling to trade cheeseburgers for chest pulls, there is something in the longevity bag for you, too. Home cryotherapy chambers, which claim to enhance wellness through exposure to low temperatures, start at around US$50,000. And there’s no exercising required, other than getting in and out of the chamber.
If you want to go all the way and be cryogenically frozen until medicine discovers cures for your ailments, you can do that, too. About 500 people, and 30 dogs, are currently in cryogenic suspension at facilities around the world.
It will be fascinating to see if Equinox’s initiative thrives in the event that inflationary pressure spreads beyond average wage earners and the recession nipping at Europe’s heels spreads across the pond.
The company is clearly confident there is no shortage of ego and disposable income among the elite to foster success. Besides, someone needs to live long enough to pay the high prices.
Gus Carlson is a U.S.-based columnist for The Globe and Mail.
Opinion: A $42000 gym membership? In this economy? - The Globe and Mail
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