Brazil’s largest online gym has 45,000 students and early morning classes

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – With no knowledge of digital tools, Ricardo Lapa managed, in ten years, to transform the few students he had at the gym where he works in Barra da Tijuca, in Rio’s west zone, into 45,000 online students. From his home, where he also runs his office, gym, and studio, and from where he gives his live classes, he talks about the success of the Foguete Online Gym and his Lapa Team brand, which includes low-carb beers for the fitness public.

With a résumé ranging from cab driver to personal trainer for celebrities such as Chay Suede, Marcelo Serrado, Bruno Gagliasso, and Thiago Martins, Lapa has conquered even more clients through his students’ word-of-mouth (and followers). In the beginning, 10 years ago, the messages came through his personal Instagram and classes were held through WhatsApp. “I would send the exercise videos and ask the students to send me back their workout videos to correct the execution,” he recalls.

The messages never stopped coming. With more than 40 online students, the personal trainer was glued to his cell phone all day (and night), given that he had students in different time zones such as Japan and Singapore. It was only in 2018, when online pandemic life was still far from happening, the idea of creating a platform to serve even more online students with video lessons emerged.

Through the Hotmart platform, gym workout videos were released in three intensity levels and Lapa started to dedicate even more to the online classes as the number of students increased. With the pandemic, the personal trainer felt the impact of the closure of gyms in a positive way, by adding more students to his online content. It was then that the workouts began to be done at home, with no equipment and using the body’s own weight.

“I started recording even more videos to cater to the at-home audience. As I had a very competitive price, in addition to having improved the platform, business grew even more,” comments Lapa about the monthly fees that start at R$29.90.

With many people at home and the Live streams boom, Lapa took advantage of the tool to invite friends and celebrity students to his live classes and gain more online sales. “But people got a little frustrated, because on the platform classes were recorded and there wasn’t that energy to do live workouts,” he says about the change in content, which also became live. “Talking to my team, I said ‘forget about this video classes business, now all the teachers are doing this, let’s take another leap forward and do it live.”

In the first place in the ranking of best-selling classes, among the more than 150,000 courses at Hotmart, and the title of the largest online gym in Latin America, Lapa inserted live classes in the platform, launching 24 monthly classes with the personal trainer.

Over time, Lapa Team teachers began to teach live classes, and today the online gym features yoga, wrestling, and dance, in addition to intensity workouts among the modalities offered.

“In April this year, we completed 152 live classes on the platform,” he comments. To this end, investments were needed for the recordings and scenario. With a curved led panel, six meters long and three meters wide and costing R$400,000, students appear in the background doing their workouts directly from their living rooms, backyards, and bedrooms.

Source: Exame