During the past year, certain events have occurred in the fitness industry that give me hope that we will see more growth next year. The dark cloud that has hung over the industry for the past two or three years seems to be lifting.

Not that turbulence has completely left the industry and not that some negative events did not occur this year, but why focus on that and bring ourselves down when we finally have a few things to be happy about?

So what did I find to be the most hopeful trend in 2011? Two contenders: the improved revenues of some of the largest public companies (health clubs and manufacturers) and the acquisition flurry we saw at the end of the year. Even though most of the club companies and manufacturers are not back to their pre-recession revenue levels, a movement upwards is cause for celebration. And the acquisitions in the last half of the year—LA Fitness bought 171 Bally Total Fitness clubs, Life Time Fitness bought four (and possibly more) Lifestyle Family Fitness clubs and Equinox bought the four Sports Club/LA clubs from the Sports Club Co.—show that some major money is available to some of the top club companies, and they are making use of it. (Although LA Fitness got a truly sweet deal at under $1 million per Bally club.)

Both of these trends offer hope for a turnaround as we enter 2012.

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