Daybreak - Cult turned amateur gym rats into fitness fanatics. Now they are paying in injuries

Episode Date: April 3, 2025

As fitness studios exploded across Indian cities after the Covid pandemic, Cult.fit rose to prominence on the back of its fun, accessible classes that appealed to sedentary urbanites. Meanwhile, doctors noticed a sharp rise in workout-related injuries. Majority of those injured fell in the "most vulnerable" 35-45 age bracket. What's going on? The Ken reporter DVLS Pranathi explains. Tune in. Question for listeners: Whose responsibility is it to make sure you don’t suffer from any injuries when you start your fitness journey? Is it yours or Cult's? Or do you think it's both?You can send in your answers to our Whatsapp number 8971108379. Also if you have any questions for Pranathi, you can send them on the same number as a voice note or a text message.Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

Hi, this is Rohan Dharma Kumar. If you've heard any of the Ken's podcasts, you've probably heard me, my interruptions, my analogies, and my contrarian takes on most topics. And you might rightly be wondering why am I interrupting this episode too. It's for a special announcement. For the last few months, I and Sita Raman Ganesh, my colleague and the Ken's deputy editor, have been working on an ambitious new podcast.

It's called Intermission. We want to tell the Sita Ramancahans, my colleague. secret sauce stories of India's greatest companies. Stories of how they were born, how they fought to survive, how they build their organizations and culture, how they managed to innovate and thrive over decades, and most importantly, how they're poised today. To do that, Sita and I have been reading books, poring over reports, going through financial statements, digging up archives, and talking to dozens of people.

And if that wasn't enough, we also decided to throw in video into. to the mix. Yes, you heard that right. Intermission has also had to find its footing in the world of multi-camera shoots in professional studios, laborious editing, and extensive post-production. Sita and I are still reeling from the intensity of our first studio recording. Intermission launches on March 23rd. To get an alert, as soon as we release our first episode, please follow Intermission on Spotify and Apple Podcast. or subscribe to the Ken's YouTube channel. You can find all of the links at the ken.com slash I am.

With that, back to your episode. About a year ago, a 35-year-old Hyderabad-based IT professional named Shweta was bit by the fitness bug. So she decided to do what most newbie fitness enthusiasts end up doing. She signed up for group classes on cult. You see, in the last decade, cult fit, which is now valued at well over a billion,

dollars has become synonymous with fitness and workouts. It has managed to make fitness accessible at a scale that has never been seen before. All you have to do is simply download the app, find a cult center near you, and choose from a range of classes, from Zumba to strength training. And the icing on the cake is that these classes can cost as little as 90 rupees. So naturally, these budget-friendly classes end up attracting a lot of amateur fitness enthusiasts like Shweta. But little do they know that very often these workouts are doing more harm than good. So, Swetha was one of those people who attended cult-fits, strength and conditioning group classes. And during one of those sessions in the third session, she was doing a deadlift and she experienced like a sharp pain in her knee.

After which she was like, you know, diagnosed for this acute ligament tear. And she had to stop exercising for like a year after that. That's our colleague DVLS Pranati. Turns out, Shweta is not alone. Pranati spoke to multiple beginners who, like her, landed up getting injured during one of Kul's many group classes. In fact, it's become such a frequent occurrence that doctors and physiotherapists have even come up with a name for it.

So I spoke to about 10 doctors for writing the story from across the country and most of them, it was very short. talking to like actually hear that, you know, a lot of them told me that 60% of their patients every month come from such injuries just as a result of, you know, gym and improper workout and improper form and things like that. And especially in Bangalore, every time a doctor asks the patient that, you know, hey, which gym do you go to? The patient's answer is, oh, I go to cult. So almost like because of that it became like a very common term amongst doctors as well to refer to these injuries as like cult injuries.

Hello and welcome to another special episode of Daybreak. I'm Snigda and I'm Rahil. And every Friday we come together to talk about something in business and tech that interests the both of us. Depending on what we're talking about, we will have some really interesting people joining us on the show. In this episode, we were joined by our colleague, the Ken reporter, DVLS Pranati is in a full-blown customer acquisition mode, which means a couple injuries aren't going to slow it down. After all, it does have an IPO right around the corner. More classes simply means more paying customers.

And this strategy has been working for it. The fitness chains operating revenue for 2024 shot up more than 30% from nearly 700 crore rupees the year before. But the growing number of injured patrons could turn out to be, be a massive chink in cult's armour. Three physiotherapists that Pranati spoke to told her that the number of workout-related injuries is up by nearly 50% from pre-pandemic levels.

And the biggest cause of these injuries? Group classes, like the one Shweta signed up for. But before we get into what they are getting wrong, let's talk about why they are so important for cult. They've kind of very strategically positioned these group classes. Like if you see, like if you take two devices in which one you have like a cult subscription and in the other one you don't have a cult subscription if you look at the one with the cult subscription you are always on a wait list to join any group class

like there will be at least a you know limit of like 10 15 people on the wait list before you know you can sign up for that class but if you're again if on the other hand if you don't have a cult subscription and you're signing up for a group class You can sign up at any time of the day one hour before the class. Until one hour before the class, you can sign up for it. And the first three classes for people who are non-subscribers is free. So you can attend the first three group classes for free. Which also they've done in the case of gym. They have, you know, the first two sessions of gym you can attend for free.

So this is kind of the strategy that they are following when it comes to acquiring new customers. And in addition to expanding these group classes, Carl's other strategy to dominate the fitness business was to own as much of the ecosystem as possible. And it did that through acquisitions. Like they acquired 20 fitness companies across the country. There's golds, there's fitness first, all of these big gyms that were there in the country,

they went and acquired all of them. And after that, they further went on to acquire equipment sellers like RPM Fitness and all of these brands to kind of make the words in fitness or gym synonymous to cult. Today, everybody knows about cult. And it isn't just a tier one phenomenon either. It has 2.30 centres across the country with more than 1 lakh paying subscribers. But more customers also means more potential injuries.

Now, to find out how these classes really pan out, Pranati attended cult's dance fitness class. at three different centres across Bangalore. In the beginning of the class, the trainer usually asks as anyone attending it for the first time. And, yeah, so I raised my hand because I wanted to understand how it is for beginners. But post that, they just tell you, oh, take it slow.

But after that, like, no one even bothers to look. If I am going to a group class, I am expecting some sort of training, some sort of monitoring. And especially if I'm a beginner who knows nothing, about working out and I'm going for the first time, I have some expectations as a customer that, you know, I want my, I want the trainer to at least come and tell me that something I'm doing is wrong. And especially if it is something like picking up weights and it's something that I absolutely

don't know anything about, then it is important for the trainer to come and kind of help me out with it. Now, this is not entirely the trainer's fault, you see. It is more of a systemic issue. First, there is a problem with a trainer and student ratio. From what we found out, a trainer at cult has to handle sessions with as many as 50 people at a time. Naturally, giving personal attention to each student in the class then becomes an issue. And the second reason is the way that these trainers are being selected. So, this is based on a conversation that I had with one of the ex-cult trainers.

So basically what he told me was that you just need like three main things to even apply for the post of a cult trainer. You just need to be good looking. You need to have a good physique and you need to have good communication skills. After that, you're put through a training program of like two weeks. So when you say good physique, it essentially means someone who is actively maybe working out. Right. After that, they have like a two week training program which they give like as a certificate. or something. And based on that, you know, the person can start taking classes. Now, that is

something which is okay for something like a yoga or like a dance fitness class. Because like, you know, it doesn't, it involves a lot of like heavy cardio related stuff. But that's not okay for something like strength and conditioning. These good looking youngsters are pushed to fill every minute of the 50 minute classes. The regime is tight. This means that. more speed and shorter breaks. Couple that with six classes a day, no set working hours, and a starting pay of four lakh rupees per annum, well, it is quite the grind.

And it doesn't help that this only leaves customers with about 10 minutes to spare for warming up and cooling down, both of which are essential during strenuous exercise. Pranati spoke to multiple doctors to understand what exactly is going wrong. So basically two main reasons. reasons, one is the posture, the body form, and second of all, the body weight. So for every individual, like when you stand, your entire body weight is on your feet. And you need to be in a certain posture to kind of hold on to extra weights that you're picking up, because in cases like strength and conditioning, especially in situations like deadlift, you need to have that kind of grip and you need to have that kind of squatting position. at that 90 degrees angle where your body needs to be in that perfect position for you to

actually not injure yourself. And even in something as simple as a push-up, your body is supposed to be at a 45-degree angle. And if it's not, then your injuries, the chances of your injuries are going to increase. Basic things like even if you are working out improperly with like dumbles, you feel the pressure on your elbow. And your body gets. sore and after that you can feel it in your forearm, you can feel it in your bicep. So things like that. So basically improper form is something that leads to majority of these problems. And the risk only amplifies the older the customers. The doctors that Pranati spoke to said that people who start their fitness journeys between the age of 35 to 45 are particularly at risk. Now, let us be

fair to cut. Anybody who is engaging in any sort of rigorous exercise or sports as a beginner runs the risk of getting injured. The issue here is because cult has become the go-to for a lot of people across the country who want to get started on their fitness journey. It has also automatically become the place where most of these injuries occur. Now, when we reached out to cult with questions on how these group sessions are being conducted, here is what they told Pranati. So basically, cult also said that, you know, that trainers have like rigorous certification program and then like you know they have basic life safety certification like in case someone gets a heart attack or something like you know they are trained to like be giving

CPR and things like that and they also said that they have like a range in which they categorize injuries between like one to four in which even like something like fainting or dizziness is considered as the first stage of injury they said that like you know their injury rate is like 1% per 3.2 lakh footfall people, which is better than global benchmark. And in case like any patient is injured and they have like a recovery, they need a recovery time and everything like that, during that time, their membership is extended and like, you know, they give refunds and things like that. That's all for today, dear listeners.

But before we sign off, here's a question for you. Whose responsibility is it to make sure you don't suffer from any injuries when you start your fitness journey? Is it yours or is it cults? Or do you think it is both? You can send in your answers to our WhatsApp number, which is 89711-08379. Also, if you have any questions for Pranati, you can send them on the same number as a voice note or as a text message. We will have her answer them for you on next Wednesday's episode.

Just write cult at the beginning of your message so we can tell that it is about this episode. Thank you for tuning in. and if you like this episode, please send it to your friends and family who you think would find this interesting.