Corporate wellness, without the ROI fairy tale.
Coached training for your team, run by the coaches who run it for everyone else. We will not tell you it pays for itself, because the best randomised trials of workplace wellness found no effect on health-care spending or absenteeism — and you deserve to hear that from the vendor rather than find it yourself.
Written proposal · No obligation · Memphis-based, locally coached
Looking for training for yourself rather than for a team? Personal training in Memphis is the page you want.
What the research actually shows
Two large randomised trials, and the honest reading of both. This is the section most wellness vendors do not have.
Self-reported behaviour
In a randomised trial of 32,974 employees across 160 worksites, employees at treated sites reported significantly more regular exercise (69.8% vs 61.9%) and more active weight management (69.2% vs 54.7%) after 18 months. In a second randomised trial of 4,834 employees, the program persistently increased health-screening rates.
Cost, clinical markers, absenteeism
The same 32,974-employee trial found no significant differences in clinical measures of health, in health-care spending and utilisation, or in employment outcomes including absenteeism, tenure and job performance. The 4,834-employee trial found no significant causal effect on medical spending, other health behaviours, productivity or self-reported well-being.
Selection, not effect
In the randomised university trial, the employees who signed up already had lower medical spending and healthier behaviours in the year BEFORE the program started. Any uncontrolled comparison of participants against non-participants will therefore show a large apparent saving that the program did not cause. That is where most published wellness ROI figures come from.
Two different questions, two different answers
“Does coached training help the person?” and “does it show up in the employer's health plan spend?” are not the same question, and conflating them is how this category earned its reputation.
The individual-level evidence is strong
Muscle-strengthening activity is associated with 10–17% lower risk of all-cause mortality, cardiovascular disease, total cancer and diabetes in a meta-analysis of 16 prospective cohort studies — with the association strongest at roughly 30–60 minutes a week. The federal guidance for adults is muscle-strengthening work on at least two days a week plus 150–300 minutes a week of moderate aerobic activity. Those findings are about people, and they hold whether or not an employer ever sees it in a spreadsheet.
So buy it for a reason it can deliver
A benefit your people will actually use, visible coaching they would not otherwise pay for, and a reason to be in the same room as colleagues doing something that is not work. Those are defensible reasons to fund this. A projected reduction in your health plan spend is not, and we will not put one in your proposal.
Every trial referred to on this page is cited with a link at the foot of the page. If a wellness vendor quotes you a savings multiple, ask them for the same thing — and check whether their comparison was randomised or simply compared the people who volunteered against the people who did not.
What Fit 901 actually delivers
Four things, in whatever combination fits your headcount, your space and your budget. No portal, no app, no wearable programme.
Small-group coached training
A coach running scheduled sessions for a group of your people — strength and conditioning, scaled so a first-timer and a former athlete can be in the same session. This is the core of it. Everything else is an add-on.
- Where it runs
- At Fit 901, or on your site where the space genuinely allows it
- The constraint
- A scheduled group session needs enough people who can reliably make the same slot. If your team cannot, a subsidised individual arrangement works better.
Nutrition education sessions
A working session on the things that actually move: protein, portions, planning, and eating on a shift or on the road. Practical, not a slide deck about the food pyramid.
- Where it runs
- On your site, or at Fit 901
- The constraint
- This is general nutrition education for healthy adults. It is not medical nutrition therapy and it does not touch anyone's medical condition or medication.
Team fitness challenges
A time-boxed challenge with a defined start, a defined finish and a measurable thing to do. Built to get people who never train to do something for six weeks, not to crown the fittest person in the building.
- Where it runs
- Runs wherever your people are, including remote staff
- The constraint
- Challenges that measure weight loss are a bad idea in a workplace and we will not run one. Participation, consistency and performance measures are what we use.
Subsidised individual coaching
Your people buy one-to-one or small-group coaching at Fit 901 and you carry part of the cost. Each employee signs their own agreement at a stated price; the subsidy is a discount on their side of it.
- Where it runs
- At Fit 901
- The constraint
- The employer never sees what happens inside an individual's coaching. Attendance at the level you are funding, and nothing else.
Can you run it in our building?
Sometimes. It depends on the floor, the ceiling height, the space and what equipment can live there safely. Bodyweight strength and conditioning travels well. Barbell work usually does not — a rack needs a floor that can take it and a room nobody has to walk through. Tell us the room you have in mind and we will tell you honestly what can be run in it, including when the answer is that your people are better off coming to us.
How this works
Four steps, ending in a written proposal with a real number on it.
Send the enquiry
Headcount, location, and roughly what you have in mind. Two minutes. Nothing about it commits you to anything, and it does not put you into a sales sequence.
A real conversation
Someone from Fit 901 comes back with questions — usually about space, schedule, who is paying and what you are actually trying to achieve. If what you want is not something we do well, this is where you will hear it.
A written proposal
Scope, schedule, coach, and a price. Not a range, not a starting-from. If we cannot support a claim, it will not be in the document — and there will be no projected savings figure in it.
Run it, then look at it honestly
We report participation and attendance at the level you are funding. If people are not showing up, we would rather change the format or end it than keep invoicing for a programme nobody uses.
What does the employer get to see about an employee?
- Fit 901 does not provide medical care, run biometric screenings, or collect clinical information about anybody.
- Employers never receive individual health data, weight, body composition, coaching notes, or anything an employee discusses with their coach.
- What an employer sees is participation and attendance at the level they are funding.
- Any employee who engages a medical provider does so entirely on their own — Fit 901 is not a party to it and receives no part of any medical fee.
Where employees pay part of the cost, each of them signs their own agreement stating what they are buying and what it costs. A subsidy is a discount on their side of that agreement — it does not change what they are buying, and it does not make their coaching the employer's business.
Questions, answered
Starting with the one you actually came here to ask.
On the current evidence, you should not buy one expecting it to. The two best-designed studies available are randomised trials: a 32,974-employee trial across 160 worksites found that after 18 months employees at treated sites reported significantly more regular exercise and active weight management, but there were no significant differences in clinical measures, health-care spending or absenteeism. A separate randomised trial of 4,834 university employees found the program increased screening rates but produced no significant effect on medical spending, other health behaviours or productivity — and that the people who signed up were already healthier and cheaper before the program started. Fit 901 will not quote you an ROI number, because we cannot support one.
Where these claims come from
Three of the sources below report NULL findings — that workplace wellness programs did not reduce health-care spending or absenteeism in randomised trials. They are cited because they are the best evidence available and because a page that quoted only the favourable halves of the same two trials would be doing exactly what this category is criticised for. If another vendor quotes you a savings multiple, ask them for their source and check whether the comparison was randomised.
- 1
After 18 months, employees at worksites offered a wellness program reported significantly more regular exercise (69.8% vs 61.9%) and more active weight management (69.2% vs 54.7%) — but there were no significant differences in clinical measures of health, health-care spending and utilisation, or employment outcomes including absenteeism. 32,974 employees, 160 worksites, cluster-randomised.
Song Z, Baicker K. Effect of a workplace wellness program on employee health and economic outcomes: a randomized clinical trial. JAMA. 2019;321(15):1491–1501. - 2
A randomised workplace wellness program persistently increased health-screening rates but produced no significant causal effect on total medical expenditures, other health behaviours, employee productivity or self-reported well-being — and participants were already healthier and less costly BEFORE the program began, which is how uncontrolled vendor comparisons manufacture large apparent savings. 4,834 employees, randomised.
Jones D, Molitor D, Reif J. What do workplace wellness programs do? Evidence from the Illinois Workplace Wellness Study. Q J Econ. 2019;134(4):1747–1791. (NBER Working Paper 24229.) - 3
At three-year follow-up of the same cluster-randomised trial, the program continued to show no significant effects on clinical measures of health, health-care spending and utilisation, or employment outcomes.
Song Z, Baicker K. Health and economic outcomes up to three years after a workplace wellness program: a randomized controlled trial. Health Aff (Millwood). 2021;40(6):951–960. - 4
Muscle-strengthening activity was associated with 10–17% lower risk of all-cause mortality, cardiovascular disease, total cancer, diabetes and lung cancer, with the association strongest at roughly 30–60 minutes a week. Systematic review and meta-analysis of 16 prospective cohort studies. This is the individual-level evidence, and it is a separate question from the employer-level financial one.
Momma H, Kawakami R, Honda T, Sawada SS. Muscle-strengthening activities are associated with lower risk and mortality in major non-communicable diseases: a systematic review and meta-analysis of cohort studies. Br J Sports Med. 2022;56(13):755–763. - 5
The activity target Fit 901 designs corporate sessions against: adults should do muscle-strengthening activity involving all major muscle groups on at least 2 days a week, plus 150–300 minutes a week of moderate-intensity aerobic activity.
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans, 2nd edition. Washington, DC; 2018. - 6
The World Health Organization's guideline reaches the same figures for adults, and adds that muscle-strengthening activity at moderate or greater intensity on 2 or more days a week provides additional health benefits.
World Health Organization. WHO guidelines on physical activity and sedentary behaviour. Geneva: WHO; 2020.
Research describes averages across groups of people. It does not predict what will happen to you, and nothing on this page is medical advice. If you have a health condition, take medication, are pregnant or nursing, or are recovering from an injury or surgery, talk to your own licensed provider before starting or changing how you train or eat, and follow what they tell you.
Request a quote
Tell us the shape of what you want and you will get a written proposal — scope, schedule, coach and price. No sales sequence, no obligation, and no projected savings figure we cannot cite.
Include these and you will get a proposal instead of questions
- Roughly how many people, and how many you expect would actually take part
- Where you are, and whether you want sessions at Fit 901 or on your site
- How often you are imagining — weekly, twice a week, a fixed-length challenge
- Whether the employer is carrying the whole cost or sharing it with employees
- Anything you have tried before that did not work, and why you think it did not
Put it in the message box. Prefer to talk it through first? Say so and ask for a call — that works too.