| Friend,
Today I want to discuss a market that is very often overlooked by martial art school owners and instructors.
Boomers and the Growing Older Adult Market
When martial art school owners think of their ideal client, I believe what often comes to mind are kids with affluent parents, or young, fit adults who enjoy a physical challenge.
Yet, there’s a huge market out there that is often overlooked by martial arts instructors. And that market is the rapidly growing older adult market, an age segment most people would think of as the Baby Boomers.
Baby Boomers are people born between 1946 and 1964, or people who are between 53 and 71 years of age in 2017. There are currently 109 million adults aged 50 or older living in the United States alone. That’s compared to 49 million Gen Xers and 82 million Millennials, and it’s a market that’s hard to ignore.*
Why Look At The Older Adult Market?
People who are 50 and above are a huge market, and that market is only going to get bigger as time passes. The reason for this is due to advances in medicine and nutrition, as well as the higher standard of living that technology has brought about over the last century.
The fact is, people are living longer and they’re staying healthier as they age. And while most young people think of older adults as getting sick and decrepit as they age, that’s actually only the case for a small percentage of aging adults. Most older adults remain healthy and they lead active lives, well into their seventies and eighties.
Plus, they represent a market segment that has significant discretionary income, and they are more than willing to spend that money on anything that is new, interesting, or that will help them retain their health and activity levels for as long as possible.
However, they do look at health, fitness, and recreation differently, and you have to understand their needs in order to attract people in this market. If you’re in your twenties or thirties, or even your early forties, you probably don’t understand the needs of this market.
Understanding This Market
Here are a few key things to know about this age group:
- They don’t want to be referred to as being “old,” anymore than a twenty-year-old wants to be called a “kid.” They also don’t want to be reminded of their age. So, you have to be very careful when marketing to this age group, to avoid insulting them with your ads.
- They tend to avoid activities that have a high risk of injury. Many older adults want to enjoy activities like martial arts, hiking, rock climbing, and so on, but they are going to avoid anything that is too dangerous. So, while an older adult might enjoy a little friendly rolling in your jiu-jitsu class, they are not going be apt to participate in your MMA competition team classes… and you shouldn’t expect them to.
- Their primary focus is typically on staying healthy and active so they can enjoy life. In other words, they like a physical challenge, but they don’t like getting injured, because it takes them a lot longer to heal than someone in their twenties or thirties. This means you have to take care of them and avoid putting them in situations where they might get hurt.
And what does this mean to you as a martial art school owner and instructor? It means that if you want to attract this market into your school, you need to have adult programs that are designed for what I call the “recreationalist” level of involvement and intensity.
Meaning, you need to offer programs that are designed so that the average adult can enjoy martial arts training, without being thrown into the deep end of the pool. And you definitely don’t want to throw these folks in with your sharks. You’ll never attract the older adult market if your dojo is a sink or swim environment.
Should You Start An “Older Adults” Class?
Right now you might be thinking, “Great! All I need to do to attract this market is to start an elder martial arts program, or a Boomers’ class.” Wrong!
See, here’s the catch-22 with this market: They want to enjoy the same activities they enjoyed when they were younger, but they don’t want to get injured, and they don’t want to be reminded of their age.
So, the quickest way to repel students over 50 is to start a program that is specifically for that market. I know this seems counterintuitive, but think about it. When you hit 55 or 65, you don’t want to be treated like an “old person.” You want to stay active and involved in physical activities, without feeling like you’re being handled with kid gloves. That means you want to be in the same classes as everyone else.
Setting Up Your Adult Programs For Success With Older Adults
As a school owner, what this should tell you is that you need to gear your adult beginner’s classes so that any relatively healthy adult can participate.
That means you don’t treat your beginner’s class like a military boot camp or fight training camp, but instead design your adult beginner classes so students get a fun challenging workout, but without the risk of injury or over-training. And depending on your style or art, this might mean changing the way you structure your classes.
For example, many jiu-jitsu school owners are figuring out that having beginners roll for 30-45 minutes at the end of each class is a great way to have a classroom full of twenty-year olds. Sure, for the younger guys and girls drilling hard for 45 minutes and then rolling for 45 minutes is just a good workout. But for an older adult, most just aren’t going to have to gas in the tank that they did when they were young.
And with exhaustion comes a higher risk for injury (because that’s when you make mistakes), as well as longer recovery times which lead to fewer opportunities to train. So, many of these schools are shortening their beginner classes and cutting back on the amount of rolling they do in each class.
Likewise, in schools that teach contact martial arts, instructors are learning that hard contact sparring will turn away many an adult student. So, they are keeping the contact light for beginners, or avoiding sparring for the first few months of training completely, in order to allow adults to opt-in to the level of involvement (and contact) they are comfortable with.
Now, this doesn’t mean that you have to lower your standards for rank advancement. Instead, all it means is that you should allow an adult to have the option to train at a lower level of intensity for an indefinite period of time. And if that means they never pass a certain level of advancement in your style (for example, if hard sparring is required to meet certain rank requirements), then that should be okay and perfectly acceptable in your dojo’s culture.
This also doesn’t mean you have to mollycoddle your students. All it means is that you let the students decide when they want to step up and do harder training, instead of pressuring them into participating in long rolling sessions and hard contact sparring sessions when they aren’t interested in participating at that level of training intensity.
50+ Fire Eaters
But here’s the flipside of that equation: you’re also going to get adult students who are 50 or older who are freaking fire eaters—super hardcore and bad to the bone. The reasons for this could be due to genetics, a hardier psychological makeup, being physically active all their lives, or better living through chemistry.
Don’t laugh, because testosterone replacement therapy (TRT) is becoming more and more accepted among mainstream medical practitioners and older men for helping them retain their youth into their later decades. The health benefits are numerous, and the downside is minimal.
And for a lot of older men, getting a weekly shot of TRT in order to have the testosterone levels they had in their thirties is no big deal. If it means they can still do all the things they did in their youth, and have the energy to enjoy them, what’s the harm in that?**
Now, the thing you have to remember as an instructor is that these students are the exception and not the rule. Don’t think that just because you have one sixty-year-old in your class who is a beast, that you can hold all your older students to that standard. Most won’t have that drive or physical ability. Keep that in mind as you run your adult beginner classes if you decide to go after this market.
The fire eaters will gravitate toward harder and more advanced training if you make it available to them. And the folks who just want to enjoy doing martial arts at a recreational level a few times a week will stay where they’re comfortable. Your job is to design your adult classes so there’s a place for both types of students in your school.
Final Thoughts On Older Adult Students
This market represents a huge segment of the adult population, and financially it’s a mistake to ignore it. If you want to attract more adults into your school, you should strongly consider making your adult beginner classes more friendly and inviting for the older population.
Some of these folks will end up being dedicated students for many years, so long as you don’t get them injured or over-trained. Avoid treating them differently because they’re older, and set up your beginner classes so they’re challenging, safe, and fun, and you’ll attract this market segment and keep many of them for the long haul.
Until next time,
Mike Massie MartialArtsBusinessDaily.com
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P.S. - *I don’t want you to limit yourself to thinking that the older adult market is just about boomers, because there’s also a whole generation of Gen Xers (which happens to be my generation) who are growing older and looking at life a lot differently because of it. And as that generation passes the five decade mark, they’re entering a time of life when they have more money to spend and more time to spend it, just like the Baby Boomers.
P.S.S. - **For older men on TRT, they are typically raising their testosterone levels to a normal healthy range for an adult male. If a guy in his fifties or sixties is getting TRT, it’s not going to turn them into the Hulk, it’s only going to make them feel closer to how they felt when they were a decade or two younger. I think it’s important to mention this, because there’s a stigma in sports regarding TRT and other therapies that young athletes use to get a superior edge on their competition. Keep in mind that an older male is merely replacing what has been lost due to age, and not boosting their hormone levels above what is healthy or natural.
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