Edmonton’s FitSet offers flexible access to dozens of local gyms

What started as an observation from an active Edmonton couple has since morphed into a project being described as the Netflix of fitness options.

“My wife and I were doing a bootcamp in the river valley, we were doing yoga at a studio here on 124 Street and boxing on the west end,” FitSet CEO and co-founder Tim Gourlay said. “We had three different memberships, we were spending over $300 a month on fitness passes and I just thought, ‘there’s got to be a better way to do this – some sort of punch card where you can go around to your favourite studios,’ and it’s evolved into this.”

“This” is FitSet. A monthly pass ($99) gives members access to more than 70 studio partners. For instance, someone could do a hot yoga class on Monday, a CrossFit class Tuesday, try boxing on Wednesday and a hip hop dance class on Thursday.

“The whole idea of this is really to support businesses,” Gourlay said. “We pay our studios a rate every time one of our members comes through their door and really give them the flexibility to offer as many or as few classes through FitSet as they want.

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“There’s a lot of really low-cost, big-box mega gyms that are in Edmonton and around that are often headquartered outside of Alberta and outside of Canada,” he explained.

“I feel like this is a really good way to keep money in our local economy with really awesome fitness businesses here in Edmonton.”

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Members can look at schedules and register for classes online. In mid-April, all that will be available through an app.

“They can see all the different studio partners, they can see the different classes and gym sessions the studio partners offer, they can see which classes are happening close to them or in the near future. They can just book and show up.”

The app also allows people to favourite certain studios or follow their friends and see what classes they’re trying.

Gourlay hopes to expand FitSet and more than 30 fitness businesses in Calgary are already on board.

“The response so far has been really great,” he said. “The studios have really bought into this idea of collaboration and growing the pie of the fitness community and getting more people active, which is awesome.”