Matthew Januszek and Mohammed (Mo) Iqbal brought JJ Creegan, Principal at Creegan Co., onto the LIFTS Podcast to dig into one of the fitness industry's most quietly destructive problems: members who join but never really show up. While headline numbers show record revenues and rising participation across the sector, Creegan argues that many operators are optimizing for the wrong thing — chasing new sign-ups while ignoring the single metric that actually determines long-term viability.

The conversation cuts through the noise around acquisition strategies and utilization stats to zero in on member frequency. Drawing on experience with brands including Planet Fitness, Orangetheory Fitness, and Purpose Brands, Creegan introduces his SCREAM framework — a diagnostic tool for evaluating business health across systems, culture, relationships, execution, action, and management. Matthew and Mo use the episode to stress-test these ideas against the real pressures operators face in 2026.

What This Episode Covers

The SCREAM framework is a structured approach to business evaluation developed by JJ Creegan at Creegan Co. It stands for Systems, Culture, Relationships, Execution, Action, and Management — six levers that Creegan argues every fitness operator must get right simultaneously if they want sustainable growth rather than fragile, surface-level numbers.

Creegan's work is rooted in hands-on experience scaling fitness brands, and his framework is designed to address a pattern he sees repeatedly: early-stage operators build momentum on what he calls 'founder energy' — the personal charisma and hustle that drives initial success but doesn't survive at scale. Once a gym or chain tries to grow beyond the founder's direct reach, fragmented systems and unclear execution standards expose the cracks.

LIFTS is the weekly fitness-industry podcast hosted by Matthew Januszek and Mo Iqbal of SweatWorks, covering the trends, strategies, and conversations shaping the business of fitness (https://www.liftspodcast.com/). Episodes like this one reflect Matthew's focus through Escape Fitness USA on what operators need to build lasting, member-centered businesses in a rapidly shifting market.

Key Moments from the Conversation

• Member frequency — how often a member actually walks through the door — is identified as the single most important metric in fitness, more predictive of retention and revenue than total membership counts or utilization rates.
• Many gyms have hidden gaps in their lead funnels at the book, show, and close stages, and operators who don't track each stage separately often misread their real conversion performance.
• Founder energy — the personal drive and direct relationships that build early traction — is a real and valuable asset, but Creegan makes clear it doesn't translate into scalable systems, meaning businesses built around a single personality carry structural risk as they grow.
• The SCREAM framework provides a way for operators to audit their business across six dimensions — Systems, Culture, Relationships, Execution, Action, and Management — rather than relying on topline metrics that can mask deeper operational fragility.
• The 'disappearing middle' of the fitness market is examined as a structural shift, with value-tier and premium-tier operators gaining ground while mid-market clubs face growing pressure from both directions.
• Consumer behavior is shifting toward performance-based fitness and personalized health journeys, driven by wearables and data, which raises the bar for what engagement and accountability look like inside a gym.
• The panel reinforces that retention is now the defining operational challenge: a member who doesn't show up consistently is not contributing to growth regardless of what the membership count says.
• Building systems that drive frequency, adherence, and long-term engagement is framed not as a nice-to-have but as the core competitive differentiator for operators who want to survive the next phase of industry consolidation.

Why This Conversation Matters

For Matthew Januszek, whose work through Escape Fitness USA sits at the intersection of equipment, programming, and operator success, the frequency problem is upstream of almost every other conversation about gym performance. If members aren't showing up, no amount of equipment investment or class programming fixes the numbers — and the SCREAM framework gives operators a vocabulary for diagnosing exactly where their system is breaking down.

The LIFTS Podcast has made a consistent editorial bet that the fitness industry's real challenges are operational and behavioral, not just technological. This episode with JJ Creegan delivers a practical framework any operator can apply — and it connects directly to LIFTS's broader mission of cutting through trend noise to focus on what actually builds durable fitness businesses.

▶  Watch the full episode on YouTube

Related Episodes & Interviews

• The Performance Medicine Era →
• Dr. Jonathan Kuo →
• AI vs HI: The Future of Fitness →