Fitness facilities have more ways than ever to measure members. But another assessment, score, or piece of technology only becomes valuable when it changes what happens next.
That is where the business case for Pronesis begins. The technology uses 3D markerless motion capture to provide objective information about how an individual moves, but Debbie Lindabery, PT, Vice President of Therapy Services, does not describe the assessment itself as the end product. Instead, she sees it as the beginning of a more informed relationship between the member, the coach, and potentially the facility.
For an owner or operator, that shifts the conversation considerably. The question is no longer simply whether a facility should offer movement assessments. It becomes whether better information can help a coach create more personalized programming, give members another way to recognize progress, strengthen the perceived value of coaching services, and create reasons for that member to remain engaged over time.
In other words, the opportunity follows a journey: assessment → understanding → programming → training → reassessment.
The technology provides the information. What the facility builds around it determines whether that information becomes valuable.
Seeing What Traditional Onboarding May Miss
Traditional onboarding gives a skilled coach useful information. A coach can watch someone move, ask about previous injuries or limitations, discuss goals, and listen to how the member describes their own body. The limitation, Lindabery says, is that members do not always know what they have adapted around.
“People often involuntarily adapt to deficits they don’t even know exist. They may not recognize a limitation or asymmetry because it has become ‘normal’ to them.”
— Debbie Lindabery, PT, Vice President of Therapy Services, Pronesis
Pronesis adds objective information to that subjective experience. Using 3D markerless motion capture, the assessment evaluates functional movements across all three planes of motion and provides numeric mobility and stability measures that can help identify areas where attention may be warranted.
Consider a member who enters the facility reporting no pain and feeling relatively good. During the assessment, Pronesis might identify a meaningful difference in ankle mobility between sides along with a compensatory shift during a squat pattern. The member may have adapted to that limitation so effectively that neither the limitation nor the compensation feels unusual anymore.
Without additional information, the coaching conversation might focus primarily on what the coach sees: keep your knees aligned, sit more evenly into the squat. With the assessment, the coach has another piece of information that may help explain why the movement looks the way it does. Exercise selection can then be adjusted when appropriate, and the coach has a baseline against which future movement can be compared.
For the member, that can make an otherwise abstract observation tangible. For the coach, it creates an opportunity to move beyond a general fitness conversation toward a more individualized discussion of how that person moves and what may help them train or perform more effectively.
That is the first important shift in the Pronesis model. The assessment does not replace what the coach knows. It gives the coach more information with which to apply that knowledge.
The Value Begins With What Happens Next
It is easy for assessment technology to become an impressive first-day experience that never meaningfully influences the rest of the membership. A report is generated, the member receives a collection of results, and everyone moves on.
Lindabery believes that misses the point.
“The assessment should never be the end product. It should be the starting point for a more informed coaching experience.”
— Debbie Lindabery, PT, Vice President of Therapy Services, Pronesis
That requires the coach to translate information into relevance. A score means very little to a member unless they understand why it matters to something they care about. The conversation therefore needs to return to the member’s goals, whether that means improving strength, returning to an activity, playing golf or pickleball more comfortably, or simply feeling more confident in the gym.
From there, relevant findings can influence programming. If an assessment identifies a mobility or stability opportunity, Lindabery says the coach may incorporate appropriate exercises into the member’s existing training rather than turning “corrective exercise” into an entirely separate experience. The result is a more connected member journey: the assessment informs the conversation, the conversation informs the program, and the program gives the member something meaningful to work toward.
This is also where the technology can strengthen the coaching relationship. There is a difference between a coach telling a member, “I noticed something during your squat,” and sitting beside that person with objective information they can review together.
The intent, Lindabery emphasizes, is not to tell someone they move “poorly” or suggest that an asymmetry automatically means something is wrong. The assessment establishes an individual starting point and helps identify opportunities that may be relevant to that person’s goals.
That positioning is particularly important for members who assume that no pain means there is nothing worth paying attention to. Objective movement information can create awareness of how they move without requiring the coach to manufacture a problem or use fear to sell a solution.
For operators, that creates an important boundary around the business opportunity. Assessment should make personalization easier. It should not make unnecessary upselling easier.
When Better Information Creates a Legitimate Revenue Opportunity
Revenue enters the conversation naturally when an assessment reveals an opportunity that connects to something the member genuinely needs and the facility is equipped to provide.
Depending on the individual, Lindabery says that could include personal training, small-group training, mobility programming, sport-specific programming, corrective exercise, or other existing coaching services. Facilities might also incorporate assessments into onboarding, premium memberships, personal-training packages, standalone services, or recurring progress reviews.
The important part is how the recommendation is made. Lindabery contrasts telling someone, “We found a problem, and now you need to buy something,” with a much more useful conversation: “Here is what we learned about how you move, and here is what we recommend based on your goals.”
That difference should matter to any operator considering assessment technology as a revenue opportunity. Recurring revenue is much more defensible when it grows from recurring value. If better information allows a facility to provide a service that is genuinely more relevant to the member, the commercial opportunity and the member experience can support one another rather than compete.
Pronesis is also appropriately cautious about putting a universal financial value on that opportunity. The company is still developing broader commercial benchmarks around conversion rates, revenue per member, and reassessment utilization. Lindabery notes that results will vary considerably according to a facility’s membership model, pricing, training participation, and how successfully the assessment is integrated into the member experience.
That caveat makes an important point for operators: purchasing assessment technology does not create a revenue model by itself. The business model exists in what the facility does with the information.
Reassessment Turns a Snapshot Into a Story
The next opportunity comes when assessment is no longer viewed as something that happens only when a member joins.
Fitness professionals already understand the importance of showing clients progress, but the markers available to them can sometimes be limited. Body weight may not change. Strength improvements can slow. A member may report that they simply feel better without having a tangible way to recognize what has changed. Movement provides another potential measure.
Pronesis allows the facility to establish a baseline and later repeat the assessment, with the timing individualized according to what was identified initially. The member and coach can then compare the information and determine whether movement measures have changed over time.
This creates the feedback loop Lindabery sees as central to the experience: Assess → Understand → Program → Train → Reassess.
The significance of that loop extends beyond measurement. It gives the coach and member another reason to have a meaningful conversation about progress. What changed? What didn’t? What has the member noticed? Does the program need to evolve? What should they work toward next?
For a facility, those conversations can become valuable retention touchpoints because they demonstrate that the member experience is continuing to respond to the individual rather than remaining static after onboarding.
Pronesis is not yet claiming that its technology independently increases retention or lifetime member value. Lindabery says the company is continuing to develop the longitudinal data necessary to quantify those outcomes and believes it is important to distinguish between the business opportunity the company sees and outcomes that can definitively be attributed to the technology.
That distinction is worth preserving. There is not yet evidence in the information provided to say that adding Pronesis will automatically improve retention by a particular amount. What an operator can evaluate, however, is whether assessment changes what happens throughout the member journey. That means looking beyond how many assessments were completed.
“The question shouldn’t be, ‘How many assessments did we perform?’ It should be, ‘Did having better information allow us to create a better and more personalized member experience?’”
— Debbie Lindabery, PT, Vice President of Therapy Services, Pronesis
That is a very different performance metric.
From One-Time Assessment to Ongoing Member Value
This is ultimately where the Pronesis business case becomes most interesting. An initial assessment creates information. That information gives the coach a more tangible starting point for a conversation. The conversation can influence programming. Programming creates an opportunity for coaching services to become more personalized. Training gives the member an opportunity to progress. Reassessment provides another way to recognize that progress and decide what comes next.
Rather than a straight line ending with the assessment report, the experience can become cyclical. For operators, that means assessment can potentially become part of the infrastructure of the member journey rather than another service sitting beside it.
Lindabery compares the idea with the way many facilities already use body-composition technology. A facility might establish a baseline and return to it periodically to help members understand change over time. Movement assessment adds another dimension by asking not only how the body may be changing, but how the member is moving.
The potential commercial value follows the member value. A facility has more opportunities for relevant coaching conversations, more information with which to personalize services, and additional touchpoints through which the member can see that their program is evolving with them.
But none of that happens simply because the technology is available.
Technology Has to Become Part of the Workflow
Perhaps the biggest barrier to any new technology is not cost or even interest. It is implementation. The response from staff is predictable: When exactly are we supposed to do this?
Lindabery argues that integration does not need to be disruptive. The Pronesis assessment can be completed using an iPad, requires minimal space, and can be incorporated into workflows facilities may already have, including onboarding, personal-training evaluations, performance programs, and periodic progress reviews.
The facility does, however, need to make several decisions before implementation. When will the assessment happen? Who introduces it? Who reviews the results with the member? How will the information influence programming? When and why will reassessment occur?
Pronesis supports facilities with onboarding, staff training, and ongoing support, but the operator still has to create an experience in which the assessment has a defined role.
That may be what separates useful fitness technology from technology that gradually disappears into the background. When assessment exists as a separate event, staff have to remember to add it to everything else they already do. When it becomes a normal part of how a facility evaluates, programs for, and tracks members, the technology has a reason to remain in the workflow.
Member positioning matters for the same reason. If Pronesis is presented as a test reserved for people who have pain or something “wrong” with their movement, its relevance immediately narrows. If it is introduced as another way to understand how the individual moves and personalize their training experience, it can become relevant to a much broader population.
Lindabery believes the facilities that derive the greatest value will not necessarily be those that perform the most assessments. They will be those that build a repeatable system around what happens before and after them.
The Technology Provides the Information. The Coach Creates the Meaning.
Fitness technology is often marketed around what it can measure, automate, predict, or reveal. But measurement does not eliminate the need for coaching. If anything, more information can make the coach’s ability to interpret, communicate, and personalize even more important.
Pronesis can identify movement information. It cannot know why returning to pickleball matters to a particular member. It cannot understand why someone feels intimidated in the gym, recognize what makes a goal personally meaningful, or decide how one assessment finding should be weighed alongside everything else happening in that person’s training and life. That is still the coach’s work. And creating an environment in which coaches can do that work consistently is still the operator’s.
“The technology provides the information. The coach and the operator create the experience.”
— Debbie Lindabery, PT, Vice President of Therapy Services, Pronesis
That may be the most useful way for an owner to evaluate Pronesis—or any assessment technology.
Instead of beginning with How many assessments can we sell?, begin with What will we be able to do better for the member because we know this information?
If the answer is better conversations, more individualized programming, clearer progress, more relevant services, and an experience that continues to evolve with the member, then the assessment has become something more than a one-time product. It has become part of the reason to stay.
FOR OPERATORS BUILDING A MORE PERSONALIZED MEMBER EXPERIENCE
Facilities investing in assessment technology need coaches who can translate movement data into real programming decisions. FitHire by Coach360 connects operators with training and therapy talent built for that kind of individualized coaching.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Pronesis?
Pronesis uses 3D markerless motion capture to assess functional movement across multiple planes. It provides numeric mobility and stability measures designed to supplement the coach’s observations and the member’s own description of how they feel and move.
How can a fitness facility incorporate Pronesis?
Facilities can incorporate assessment into existing touchpoints such as onboarding, personal-training evaluations, performance programs, or periodic progress reviews. Pronesis says the assessment can be completed using an iPad and requires minimal physical space.
Can Pronesis create recurring revenue for a facility?
Pronesis sees potential for assessment findings to connect members with appropriate existing services such as personal training, small-group training, mobility or sport-specific programming. Assessments may also be incorporated into premium memberships, training packages, standalone services, or progress reviews. However, the company is still developing broader commercial benchmarks and does not currently claim a universal revenue model.
Does Pronesis improve retention?
Pronesis sees assessment and reassessment as opportunities to create meaningful member touchpoints and make certain forms of progress more visible. The company is still developing longitudinal data, however, and does not currently claim that a specific retention or lifetime-value improvement can be independently attributed to the technology.
What should an operator measure after implementing Pronesis?
Lindabery recommends looking beyond assessment volume and examining what happens afterward. Operators can consider whether the information is influencing programming, creating meaningful coach-member conversations, supporting appropriate services, encouraging reassessment, and contributing to a more personalized member experience.
About Erin Nitschke
Dr. Erin Nitschke, NSCA-CPT, NFPT-CPT, ACE Health Coach, ACE-CPT, Fitness Nutrition Specialist, Therapeutic Exercise Specialist, Pn1, FNMS, and DSWI Master Health Coach, is a seasoned college professor in health and human performance. She is a nationally recognized presenter, industry writer for IDEA, NFPT, Fitness Education Online, and Youate.com, and an active member of the ACE Scientific Advisory Panel. With extensive experience in health and exercise science, Erin specializes in holistic, evidence-based approaches to wellness. Her passion lies in empowering individuals to lead healthier, more vibrant lives through personalized coaching. Erin’s philosophy centers on education, accountability, and sustainable behavior change—guiding clients to achieve long-term success in nutrition, fitness, stress management, and overall well-being. To connect with Dr. Nitschke, email her at erinmd03@gmail.com or on Instagram: @nitschkeerin
