HIIT built a decade of boutique fitness businesses — and now the data is catching up with it. On this episode of LIFTS, Matthew Januszek and Mohammed (Mo) Iqbal are joined by Ross Campbell, Founder and CEO of Beyond Activ, for a sweeping industry conversation that takes in the shifting fortunes of training modalities, the extraordinary rise of wellness-oriented hospitality, and the disruptive force of GLP-1 medications. Campbell's perspective is shaped by running one of the world's most influential global networks for fitness, wellness, and leisure — giving him access to trends across markets and business categories that most operators see only from within their own segment.

The episode draws on Beyond Activ's recent event in Saudi Arabia as a lens through which to examine how wellness is being built into large-scale real estate and hospitality projects in new markets, and what that signals for the global fitness industry. The conversation also examines the growing crossroads for boutique fitness between specialization and saturation, and the emerging case — led in part by Dr. Stacy Sims's research — that HIIT may not be delivering for every demographic the way its proponents once claimed.

What This Episode Covers

Ross Campbell is the Founder and CEO of Beyond Activ, one of the largest and most respected global networks connecting businesses in health, fitness, wellness, sports, hospitality, and leisure. Beyond Activ's events and community bring together operators, investors, brands, and innovators across continents — with a particular recent focus on emerging markets in the Middle East and Asia where wellness infrastructure is being built at remarkable speed and ambition.

Campbell's vantage point is genuinely global: where most industry executives speak from the perspective of a single brand, format, or geography, he draws on conversations with leaders and operators across the entire wellness ecosystem. That makes him an authoritative guide to macro trends — the shift from HIIT toward strength and Pilates, the wellness hospitality boom, GLP-1's disruptive potential — that are playing out simultaneously across very different markets.

LIFTS — the Latest Industry Fitness Trends and Stories — is the weekly podcast co-hosted by Matthew Januszek and Mo Iqbal of SweatWorks, available at liftspodcast.com. The show's conversation with Campbell exemplifies its core purpose: finding the people closest to the industry's most consequential shifts and building a substantive conversation around what those shifts mean for practitioners and operators everywhere.

Key Moments from the Conversation

• The decline of HIIT as a dominant training format is discussed through both commercial observation and emerging research — including work by Dr. Stacy Sims suggesting that high-intensity interval training may produce suboptimal or even counterproductive outcomes for certain populations, challenging the consensus that HIIT is universally effective.
• Strength training and conditioning workouts are examined as the beneficiaries of HIIT's waning dominance, with Campbell and the hosts exploring how the industry is repositioning its programming and equipment investments to reflect members' growing preference for resistance-based training.
• The boom in Pilates is explored as one of the clearest illustrations of how member preferences are evolving — with low-impact, precision-focused training capturing demand from demographics that boutique fitness previously struggled to serve at scale.
• Beyond Activ's recent Saudi Arabia event is discussed as a window into the extraordinary scale of wellness investment in the Middle East, where large-scale hospitality and real estate projects — including Equinox's engagement with Neom — are integrating premium fitness and wellness as core infrastructure rather than ancillary amenities.
• The growth of wellness-centric hospitality is examined as a structural shift in how health and fitness is being positioned commercially — moving from standalone gym or spa provision toward integrated wellness offerings embedded in hotels, residences, airports, and lifestyle destinations.
• GLP-1 medications are addressed as a genuine disruptor for the fitness industry, with Campbell bringing a global perspective on how different markets are processing the emergence of weight-loss medications and what fitness operators need to be thinking about as GLP-1 use spreads across demographics and geographies.
• The airlines and airports wellness opportunity is identified as an emerging commercial space, with the episode noting that travel infrastructure operators are reinvesting in lounges and wellness facilities in ways that create new distribution channels for fitness and recovery brands.
• Meaningful, in-person connection through events is defended as a durable source of value in an increasingly digital industry landscape, with Campbell explaining why Beyond Activ continues to prioritize live events as the context in which the most important relationships and deals actually get made.

Why This Conversation Matters

Ross Campbell's role at Beyond Activ gives him a perspective that is genuinely difficult to replicate: he is watching the same macro trends — GLP-1, strength training's rise, wellness hospitality — play out across dozens of markets simultaneously, with both the granular operator data and the 30,000-foot view. For Matthew Januszek and Mo Iqbal, whose LIFTS podcast is built on exactly this kind of informed, cross-market intelligence, the conversation represents the show at its most ambitious scope.

For Escape Fitness USA and the broader industry audience LIFTS serves, this episode is a reminder that the most consequential shifts in fitness are rarely confined to a single format, geography, or business model. Campbell's account of what he is seeing — from Saudi Arabia's wellness build-out to the research questions being raised about HIIT — is a prompt to zoom out and think about the industry as a whole.

▶  Watch the full episode on YouTube

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