Youth Gyms Live and Die by Seasonality. Altamont Performance Lab Found a Way Out.

Altamont Performance Lab gives youth athletes in Tracy, California something their school weight room can’t provide: dedicated strength and conditioning coaching and accountability. General Manager and Head Coach Vinny Pelillo leads the program with a sports background and over 20 years of coaching experience. Now the gym is approaching its 9th anniversary with 89 members and near-zero churn.

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Running a sports performance facility for middle school and high school athletes isn’t easy. It requires fighting a seasonal market, where families move around often and kids disappear when their sports season starts. Using tools like PushPress Members App and automated workflows in Grow, Vinny found a way to grow and retain his members.

The Problem

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Old software made things harder

Vinny had been using MindBody for years but both staff and members found it difficult to use. “With MindBody, not everybody would download the app because you were seeing nail salons and other things. It was confusing.” The software price also kept rising without meaningful technology improvements, and support requests went unanswered.

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Manual processes left members slipping through

As athletes left when their sports season started, membership and revenue would drop to a low that made Vinny nervous. He had no reliable way to bring them back. Re-engagement emails and follow-ups with leads all had to be written manually. When things got busy, outreach couldn’t happen and there was nothing to stop churn from compounding.

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The Solution

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One platform running everything

Vinny switched to PushPress Core for billing, memberships, and scheduling. PushPress Grow became his re-engagement engine, finally giving him a way to communicate with leads, canceled members, and his current member base without doing it all by hand.

“Before I would have had to send all those emails manually. PushPress makes my life easy. I can go in, filter who I want to send to, and boom.”

Instead of letting seasonal gaps quietly turn into cancellations, Vinny could now reach lapsed members directly and promote programs designed to keep athletes training year-round.

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Summer camp sold out in weeks

When Vinny launched a summer camp to keep athletes engaged through the off-season, a few targeted emails through Grow was all it took to sell out. Of the 13 athletes enrolled, he expects roughly half to convert to ongoing memberships when camp ends, who otherwise would have gone quiet until the next season.

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Improved member app experience

Members get their own app with Altamont Performance Lab’s branding, not a generic platform shared with unrelated businesses. Athletes and parents can book classes, check scheduling updates, and manage payments without calling the front desk.

For youth athletes, it's often the parents running the account, who sometimes train at Altamont’s sister gym next door, which also uses PushPress. Families with a parent at one location and a kid at Altamont can toggle between both gyms in the same app without creating extra log-ins.

“Everything is taken care of. I don’t have to wake up to any issues on my desk. I come into work in the morning and just wait for the athletes to show up.”

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A coaching staff that can actually run the gym

Every coach has access to Core for scheduling and membership updates. Vinny controls permission levels remotely, so billing stays protected and coaches have exactly what they need depending on their role. This way the ship still runs even when Vinny isn’t on-site.

That same visibility extends to business goals. Vinny can easily share revenue reports from PushPress on the big TV at staff meetings. Coaches know where membership stands, what the numbers look like, and what they're working toward together.

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Results

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53% member increase with almost no churn

Altamont Performance Lab was at 58 members a year ago. Today they’re at 89, a 53% increase year over year.

Churn is nearly nonexistent. The members who leave are either moving away or going to college, like Vinny’s longest tenured athlete who just signed the gym wall before heading off to play college softball after 8 years of training. Vinny's average member now stays well past 7 months.

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17% revenue growth in a single month

After months of consistent emails, a summer camp launch, and targeted outreach, monthly revenue jumped 17% and kept climbing.

When Vinny shared the news publicly, members brought chocolates and wine to celebrate. In the weeks that followed, Altamont added 15 new members.

"I always used to get scared when membership climbed high. What happens if it drops again? I don't have those feelings anymore."

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Support that shows up

When Vinny ran into a technical issue, a PushPress support rep resolved it within two days and followed up multiple times after the fix. With his old software, he would have sent an email that took weeks for a response.

"I felt like I was having a normal conversation with somebody. It got resolved, and the continued follow-up — that was huge."

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Vinny's Final Thoughts

In Vinny’s 20 years of coaching, he's seen the eras of spreadsheets, credit card swipers, and disorganized software. PushPress is where he plans to stay, because it gives him the simplicity to run a business the same way he coaches athletes: with consistency, good data, and the right system in place.

As the town of Tracy grows in population with more schools, more sports teams, and more athletes who need coaching, Vinny is equipped to handle the growth and provide his services to more members.

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"The people running PushPress are also running gyms, and they've been coaches. We're all doing the same stuff — and that makes my life easier.”

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Running a youth athletics or performance facility? See how PushPress helps you convert seasonal athletes into long-term members. Book a Demo Today.