Power Moves 005 - Alyssa D'aquino: Crunch Takes On Pilates

This is Eric Malzone and welcome to this special Power Moves edition of the Future of Fitness. In these brief segments, we spotlight breaking news and advancements across the industries of fitness, health, and wellness. From partnerships and acquisitions to product launches and investment rounds, we bring you exclusive direct insights from top industry voices. Power Moves are brought to you by the Podcast Collective. Learn more at Podcast Collective.io.

Alright, Alyssa DeCrino, welcome to this very special episode of Power Moves on the Future of Fitness. It's a pleasure to have you.

Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here.

Yeah. So to remind people, I haven't done one of these in a little while, these Power Move episodes are essentially kind of like a press release, but a little bit more in-depth than what you would get on a one page that no one really reads anyway. Um, so I I always like the conversational piece and we get a lot out of it. And I had uh Tony Scrimalli on earlier this year, um, a recording right at the tail end in 2025, so people know. And CR Fitness, you guys are are on the move. You know, you're crushing it, like we were just talking in pre-recording. It's it's all gas pedal, no brakes right now. Very much so. Um and this is a cool announcement. So you're bringing in Pilates inside, and we'll I'll let you do the honors of telling you guys what they're up to. So let's start with this. Give us a little bit of your background, uh, you know, relevant to what you're doing at the group fitness model here at CR and Crunch, and then we'll we'll get into the rest of it.

Yeah, of course. So I was a dancer growing up my whole entire life. So going from teaching dance, teaching group fitness was a very natural progression. Um, so when I was in college, I actually got certified. I was teaching at our, you know, local gym over there inside the university. And right out of college, there was a crunch fitness, literally a stone throw away. So I went right on in with my resume. You know, back then we didn't do everything online, so marched right in with my resume, and I was like, I want to teach here. And uh, I got an interview on the spot, and I started off with our Tuesday, Thursday morning 5:30 a.m. classes, which are if you've ever taught early in the morning, those people are dedicated. It never gets easy waking up, but those people make it worth it, right? Back then, that was in 2015, 2016, and we were opening up a lot of locations in Florida, a lot of locations in the Tampa area. So every time we were opening up a location, I stuck my foot in there and I was getting into teaching a bunch of different clubs. I went from teaching at that one location in Tampa Palms into five locations in the Tampa Bay area. At that time, I was also a behavioral therapist. So it was a full-time, you know, getting my adult career, as I say. And then I was doing fitness on the side. And two years into doing that, I was like, you know what? I love fitness. I really don't want to go back to school and get my master's. I had no interest in any of that. And I was like, I don't know what I'm gonna do with this, but I'm gonna, I'm gonna try teaching full-time. So I remember calling my dad up and told him, you know, all the college that I just went through, I'm gonna basically throw it away and go be a fitness instructor for the rest of my life. And he was like, I'll give you a year, see what this does. And within that year, I was able to go ahead and become a group fitness manager over at our Bloomingdale location, which was the one location I never taught at. But it was an amazing experience, really kind of going from just teaching to like managing was different, right? And then we were opening up our Riverview location right away after that. So that was my first club that I truly opened. I acquired our South Tampa channel side right after that. And then COVID hit. So after COVID, my director at the time was looking to go ahead and retire. You know, she was wanting to go and do real estate full-time, enjoy her life. She deserved it. She's amazing, an amazing mentor to have. And I remember she called me up. I was at lunch with my parents. They were coming down from New York visiting me. And she was like, Do you want to go to South Florida and open up South Florida? I was like, sure. Had no idea what that looked like, what we did with opening in a new whole market like that. And uh, they shipped me over to Miami the next day. And I opened up our Cutler Bay location soon after that, Tamarack. Then we went up to West Palm. And then from there, I got a regional management job with our group fitness department. And at that point, I was running our old clubs in Tampa that I still oversaw and then opening up South Florida. And I used to say, like, I became regionals of all regionals, because then I was opening up Atlanta, I was opening up North Carolina, all of a sudden I was opening up Dallas. And two years after, that's when I became our vice president of Group Fitness. So truly just taking every opportunity that came my way and just learning through the processes and really kind of creating the processes as we go has been really, really exciting. And one thing that I love about our company is we're not afraid to innovate. And that's something that we're gonna be talking today. We're cool with coming in and doing something different. I think that's what's so fun about opening up clubs is every time it's like a new test tube, trying to see okay, what can we do to make it bigger and better?

Awesome. So you you know the fitness, the group fitness model well. And uh the time between behavioral therapy and fitness coaching, that's a whole nother episode. Uh, I'm sure that's uh there's there's lots of things.

It ties in very well.

Yeah, it really does. It really does. Okay, so what's the announcement, Alyssa? What are you guys doing with with Pilates here?

Yeah, so this coming year, 2026, we're gonna be launching our very first Pilates Reformer studio within our four walls. Just to give you a little context, we have our large group in a studio, which is your typical aerobic studio. We do everything under the sun when it comes to dance, you know, strength training classes, cardio, yoga, Pilates, regular matte Pilates. And then we do have our cycle studio, we call it the ride. Um, we did launch our hit zone back in 2018. That's gonna be like our functional training ground with boxing classes as well. And then back in 2019, we actually launched our hot studio, which is if you're watching our video today, you can see me in one of our hot studios. And it's actually hot right now. I'm just, you know, I'll glisten at some point.

Glisten, great.

But we have hot yoga, hot Pilates, which is very, very popular right now in hot fitness style classes. So to add on to our studio menu, we're gonna be launching over a Pilates Reformer studio, which we're super excited about. And that's just going to take us to a whole other level. You know, our goal here is to create that boutique experience or that studio experience in a big box gym. And I really think Pilates Reformer is the way to do it.

Yeah, interesting. What made you guys choose Pilates? I think people who listen to this podcast or follow the industry know that Pilates has been very hot for a while. No, no pun intended to the to the room you're standing in right now. But it's been it's been on an upward trend for a while. A lot of high, high growth uh brands, especially in the boutique space. But I I don't know if it's been done in the HVLP correct, right? So what was the decision behind this?

You know, like I said earlier, we're trying to always be innovative and trying to see like, okay, what is something that our consumers want that we can deliver at a great price? And Pilates Reformer, as you mentioned, it's so popular right now. You know, it's nothing new. Pilates Reformer has been around for years, right? But right now it's such a want by the consumer. And it's a great, great workout. I do it myself. I think it's an amazing thing to add to your wellness. But to create it in a space that we have and have an accessibility factor to members that might not know where to go or they might be afraid to go into a Pilates studio because it's it's taxing, right? You walk in, you don't know what to expect. I don't, I've never done a reformer class, I don't know what to do. I don't want to make a fool out of myself, right? But when you put it in a setting like our club where they usually know all these instructors, you can maybe bring a friend. A price point is just right. You're not risking too much, right? It's a lot more inviting. So we wanted to create a space where people can do something like this, but make it way more accessible.

Yeah, right on. And so give me the details here. You guys are launching it in Texas, right? One location. Yeah. So tell us like, do you have any partnerships? Like, how are you guys getting the market on this?

Yep. So our McKinney location is gonna be the first one that opens with this studio. That's gonna be kind of like our test run. Um, they're going to have about 12 to 14 reformers in the studio. Right now, we're working with your reformer through Matrix. That's gonna be the line that we utilize. Um, right now, at the moment, we're just fine doing the finishing touches of what the design of the club, or sorry, not the club, but the look of the studio is gonna look like. And then we're gonna get right into programming and seeing where that's gonna fit into our group fitness model, right? Here at Crunch, we do all of our programming in person, like proprietary through us. We don't outsource. So that's what we want to keep with our PLI as reformer, but also make sure it's safe and effective, right? Reformer is technical, it's very, very form-driven. So we want to ensure that we create a space that we can do this in an economical setting, right? You're not gonna have a small group because we always want to think about how do we get the most bootic in class. I'm not gonna curse on here. You can't if you're we have like a fun little slogan that we say. Um, you know, we get the asses in classes. But at the end of the day, we want to ensure that we create the right space to do so.

Yeah, right on. And is this how how's this priced? Are you guys doing it as if it's like personal training? Because it these, I mean, these are if you go to a boutique, these are expensive, right? And we're talking upwards of $300 a month or um, you know, $100 a class, whatever it may be. It's it's definitely for people who have a little bit of money.

Yeah, correct. Most of the studios, they do package deals. So it depends on like you're buying a certain amount of classes for a certain package. So they'll range from like $100 to $300 a month. And again, remembering, you only get that. You only get Pilates Reformer. So we are doing what I think is gonna be the most innovative is we're putting it inside our membership deal. So it's not going to be personal training, it's not gonna be a separate package where most of these clubs are doing, it's gonna be part of our peak results membership that is $30 a month, which is just a complete steal.

Yeah. I mean, just like the investment you guys have to put in to get the the equipment. I've never done a reformer class. I'm actually not sure of some of the prices of what these performers know, but I know they're not cheap, right? So it's it's uh it's definitely an investment in this.

And yeah.

What about the the trainers? Because I I know like a lot of people maybe listen to this who are in the boutique space or you know, hardcore and applies and like, well, you know, it takes a lot of education to do it right. So how are you solving for that?

You know, that's that was actually my biggest thing with this project. It was like, we're gonna do this. I gotta make sure that I create a way that I can get these instructors certified and an entry-level way to get them certified. Because yeah, a lot of these certifications are like they're a lot of hours and it's a lot of money, right? And I'm like, okay, I need people fast. I can't have them do a certification that's gonna take them six months. So we have been working with Neta, N E T A, that's going to be doing our certification in-house with us. And then with Crunch, we do a lot of again, that proprietary programming to where we will ensure that they are running a crunch specific class. So they do, they get a lot of continued education with Crunch Fitness, which is again what's so amazing about the model that we have. It's not just someone coming in with a certification and it's like, okay, go do the class that you want to do. They come in, they have their embodying cert, which is what we require, but then we come in and we teach them the way that we need the class to be. We do everything pre-designed, not pre-choreographed. So it's not gonna be like step by step, this is exactly what you're doing. But within the class, you're gonna have these, you know, blocks of work. And then you, as the instructor, get to creative and kind of put what you need in that class. So they're still not like a crunch robot, as we say, but they get to really create their spin, their flair. But then we know if they're going to this Pilates Reformer class, this is what you're expecting out of the class.

Yeah, right on. And and who do you think is gonna take these classes? Like uh, how old are they? What do they look like? Yeah.

You know, I've been doing, I call it my market research. I go to a lot of classes every week, and you will find anyone and every everyone in these classes, whether it's men, it's women, all ages, all sizes, will take Pilates Reformer. And what's so great about it is because it's so low impact, it's not gonna be something like a hit class, right? A lot of people are like, oh, I'm not fit enough for that yet, right? Pilates reformer, though, it's it's challenging. It's a huge core workout, and you got to really focus on engaging the core muscles, which I tell everyone that comes into fitness, like starting with Pilates is the best thing to do because you need to learn how to engage your core to do anything else. You need to learn how to engage your core when you do squats, you need to learn how to engage your core when you're running. So if you go into Pilates and you get those fundamentals, it's just gonna make you that much better in your fitness, you know, aspirations, anything going moving forward. So it really is for everyone. There's a lot of like research nowadays. It's getting very popular with uh, you know, athletes that have been doing Pilates. So I think that's been kind of like lowering that barrier for men going into class. I think very much so you see the women going to Pilates, but I have been seeing a lot of like men kind of venturing in. And we see the in our hot studios too. You would think that most of our hot clients are women. We have tons of men that come into our hot studio classes because they see the benefits, they need that recovery. You know, everything's a balance. You can't just do strength training, you can't just do cardio, you have to do a little bit of it all.

Yeah, yeah, I'm realizing that in my late 40s. Anyway, what what does this look like as far as a rollout? So you guys are doing the pilot. What's the timeline on it? Is this just CR fitness crunch gyms, or is this crunch corporate? Like what does this look like over the next few years?

So we're working with Net, right? That that's it. That fun would we're working with Crunch Corporate to roll this out. So we are franchise, that meaning that we do have to go through corporate to kind of roll these things, but they're very big on getting feedback from their field, which I love about them. Um, so I've been working very much hand in hand with them to really ensure that we kind of get this rolling. We're gonna be the first CR, the first franchise to CR Fitness to roll out Pilates with the hope that the rest of the franchise brands go ahead and take it on. Again, Hot Studio is a great kind of reflection of that. When we launched Hot Studio, we were the only franchise that did it for a couple of years. And now it's something that people are adding consistently because they see the return on investment. We're not afraid to be like those trailbrazers, the risk takers to take something, show that it's profitable, show that it does well, and then everyone else kind of falls in line.

Awesome. Anything else? Anything else that the industry should know about this? I mean, it's it's a curious development, that's for sure. I'm gonna be following it.

I think at the end of the day, no matter what, you have to make sure that you find your brand with it, right? You can't just do Pilates Reformer. You have to ensure if you're gonna do Pilates Reformer, then you need to create the crunch way of Pilates Reformer. You need to create whatever your brand is. And that's how you stand out, right? It can't just be like every other studio. You gotta find what makes you guys different. And that's what I think you'll see with our Pilia's reform when we roll it out.

Right on. Alyssa, thank you so much for doing this. Uh people have questions, or where would you like them to go?

Oh, that's a great question. They can find me on LinkedIn under Alyssa Dequino. Um, I can always pop on there. I post anytime that we're opening clubs, you open clubs very, very much. Uh, we're about to launch five in one day tomorrow. Just doesn't even feel like it. But it's up five tomorrow. So if I don't answer you tomorrow, I'm very busy. But anytime on LinkedIn, that's where they can find me.

Okay. Great. Well, Alyssa, thanks for doing this. It's uh it's always fun. I really enjoy the leadership team you guys have put together there at CR Fitness. Everyone I talk to, it's it's it's it's great. So I wish you guys best of luck. Um, I'll be following it. And please uh feel free to keep me updated and I'll keep the audience updated as well. So thank you.

Will do. Thank you so much for having me.