24 Hour Fitness, which claims to be the largest privately owned U.S. fitness chain of health clubs, has gone mobile with the My24 iPhone application and a mobile Web site.

The new offerings bring fitness management features directly to club members? mobile devices. Users can now locate clubs while on the move, review club amenities, look up class schedules and access a variety of fitness tools.

?The target and focus of the iPhone application and mobile site is convenience for our members,? said Bill Quinn, vice president of 24HourFitness.com at 24 Hour Fitness, San Ramon, CA. ?The most frequent activities on our Web site are looking for classes and club locations, so for us it seemed like a natural next step to go mobile.

?If that?s the information our members want, why not build an app?? he said. ?Why not give them that information at their fingertips so they can find classes and clubs while on the go??

Gym chain 24 Hour Fitness serves more than 3 million members in more than 400 clubs nationwide.

The company sponsors the U.S. Olympic Team and has partnered with consumer brands such as Coca-Cola, Dial and Everlast, as well as NBC?s reality TV show ?The Biggest Loser.?

Mobile workout
Although the iPhone application and mobile Web site were designed with 24 Hour Fitness members in mind, they are also available to the general public without a log-in requirement.

Features of the My24 iPhone application include a Club Finder feature. My24 lists nearby clubs when users enter a local ZIP code on their handheld device and lets users find clubs using the ?search by city? or ?advanced search? functions.

Application users can auto-locate clubs using the iPhone?s GPS technology.

My24 users can retrieve club location information, club photographs and full lists of available club amenities.

The Class Schedule Finder feature lets users search for upcoming classes at specific club locations and includes details such as the names of instructors and class formats.

By setting a default club, users can get quick access to their preferred club information, including class schedules and contact information.

In addition to 24 Hour Fitness information, My24 users have access to personal health tools such as the Body Mass Index (BMI) Calculator. BMI is a useful indicator of overall fitness. Users can calculate their BMI and keep track of changes over time.

The Calorie Burner feature helps users track workout duration and intensity to calculate the number of calories they have burned.

The Resting Metabolic Rate feature helps users track the number of calories they consumed while at rest. Users can monitor calories burned when they are not working out.

The Daily Calorie Calculator lets users calculate their approximate calorie needs based on their activity levels.

The iPhone application and mobile Web site provide mobile access to the 24 Hour Fitness YouTube video channel at http://www.youtube.com/user/24HourFitnessInc. This includes class videos and equipment instruction.

Users can also refer a friend to 24 Hour Fitness via the application and mobile Web site.

?We wanted to have mobile covered, so whether our members have an iPhone, a BlackBerry or another smartphone, we want them to give them access to info however they want it, so that was why we built the mobile Web site,? Mr. Quinn said.

?The iPhone app is an added benefit, because the iPhone dominates the market and most of our mobile traffic comes from iPhone users,? he said. ?We do want to continue to produce a better iPhone app by reading people?s comments and making upgrades and adjustments accordingly."

24 Hour Fitness is promoting the iPhone application via homepage placement and on the WAP site with a call-to-action to download the application, as well as email blasts to its members and a social media presence on Facebook and Twitter.

In-club signage at the front desks of its gyms promotes both the mobile site and the iPhone application.

While 24 Hour Fitness is thrilled with its application and mobile site, an SMS campaign to drive sign-ups was deemed less successful.

?Mobile applications are very beneficial to our member base, but in terms of prospecting and acquisition, mobile is not quite there yet,? Mr. Quinn said. ?We see a lot of potential to grow our mobile presence, because mobile is such a great fit with fitness.?