The 4 S’s of Fitness revenue $
Discover why real fitness coaching is so hard to sell — and how the Big 4 S’s (Supplements, Sexuality, Scalability, Scrutiny) shape the fitness industry. insights from my 25 years in Columbus personal training at MyoBio Upper Arlington, Ohio.
I have been coaching and working as personal trainer in Columbus, Ohio for the past 25 years. I can tell you that coaching real fitness is slow, layered work it is never fast, flashy, or easy. It’s about changing habits, not selling hype. The honest side of this industry rarely fits in a quick TikTok or a limited time offer flashy ad on Facebook or YouTUBE. Combine that fact with how most people crave the dream, not the daily grind.
So what happens? Coaches, influencers, and fitness companies fall back on the Big 4 S’s shortcuts that sell faster than real coaching. They aren’t always scams but they’re never simple.
The Big 4 S’s: Effort vs. Profit
These four streams shape how trainers, creators, and small fitness brands survive today. Profit margins, workload, and platform reach make them irresistible when real training feels unsellable.
Supplements: High profit, minimal effort — Read more in our supplement scam blog
Sexuality: High profit, moderate effort
Scalability: Decent profit, high effort
Scrutiny: Low profit, high effort — but growing
1️⃣ Supplements: Easy Cash, Easy Come
Supplements turn shaky coaching income into steady side money. From protein powder to detox greens, they’re sold as tools but pitched as miracles. No scheduling, no coaching hours just push the link and ship the hope.
Affiliate links, private labels, DTC boxes. One viral claim — "burn fat while you sleep" can move thousands if the branding’s slick.
The tradeoff? Cheap lines cut corners. Weak doses, mystery fillers, zero regulation. Big profit, little oversight.
Fallback: When clients ghost, the bottle still sells.
🔍 Next Look: White-label scams vs. third-party tested blends.
2️⃣ Sexuality: When the Body Sells the Brand
It’s not just adult content. It’s selling desire: the polished edge of fitness influencer culture that flips selfies into side income. Curated thirst traps, or not so subtle subscription pages all saying "want me" with ASMR louder than "train with me."
Algorithms boost what grabs eyes, not what educates. A flawless glute reel beats a squat cue every time.
The risk? Once your image pays the bills, your credibility shifts. Fans will often follow the fantasy, not the facts.
Fallback: Fast money. Hard to walk away.
🔍 Next Look: How body-as-brand eats away at mental health, especially for women and queer coaches.
3️⃣ Scalability: The Passive Profit Mirage
"Sell once, earn forever." The dream that keeps many coaches grinding building PDFs, cookie-cutter programs, low cost apps. Done right? One viral push and you’re free. Done wrong? Another ghost file on someone’s laptop.
Most don’t scale. Real scale needs trust, a real audience, and repeat buyers. So many mimic VShred: fake scarcity, false promises, staged results. Eventually becoming a mockery to anyone with a platform.
Fallback: When in-person burns you out, "passive" income feels like salvation.
🔍 Next Look: Why fitness PDFs die on the download.
4️⃣ Scrutiny: The Drama Dividend
It doesn't matter if its Supplements, Scale, or Sex number 4 comes for them all equally. When you can’t fix the system, you can burn it down while you build your own brand. Exposés, fake natty callouts, supplement scams conflict sells. "Gotcha" content on YouTube, TikTok,Instagram or X rewards outrage and reaction.
Callouts build audiences. But the cycle eats its own. One slip, you’re the next headline.
Fallback: Some lift the curtain for clicks. Others do it to clean house. Neither scales cleanly.
🔍 Next Look: Defamation, burnout, and when the watchdog gets bit.
Final Word: They’re Clues, Not Crimes
Supplements. Sexuality. Scalability. Scrutiny.
They show an industry that:
✔️ Chooses clicks over craft
✔️ Buys looks over skill
✔️ Feeds dopamine, not discipline
Each deserves a closer look that’s next.
If you are looking to start a new chapter , get back into shape , or your doctor has simply said you have to exercise more. MyoBio Upper Arlington, Ohio is right there. Ready to help you MAKE LIFE MORE. We look forward to hearing from you.
📌 Coming Up:
Inside the Supplement Scam Funnel
The "Muscle Mommy" Economy
Why Every Quiz Gives You the Same Plan
Feuds & Fallout: The Scrutiny Machine
The Cerulean Effect: Fitness, Fashion, and Miranda's Lesson
Luxury fitness equipment borrows the same quiet trickle-down influence as high fashion showing readers that your dumbbells, yoga mats, and stationary bikes are rarely just gear. They’re statements, designed to blur the line between training and living. If Miranda Priestly can decode cerulean, you can decode walnut and gold plate.
At my partner’s insistence I watched The Devil Wears Prada for the first time, and Miranda’s blue sweater scene caught me off guard. It annoyed me, disarmed me, made me rethink every trend I’ve mocked in fitness. So here’s my warm Alan Shore admission: I’m a Priestly groupie now — and here’s where that lesson lands. Just like that cerulean blue, Paragon Studio, PENT, Technogym, Cycling Bears, LuxusFit, Manduka, Liforme, even Lululemon — they all use the same exclusivity trickle that filters into every weight rack and yoga mat we pretend to choose freely.
If you think this is new, revisit the Peloton saga. Not the B2B subscription service clinging to corporate wellness contracts of today but that bike, staged alone on a cedar deck, in a minimalist Zen garden, or poised before a floor-to-ceiling skyline view. The sale was never spin class. It was the image of success, perched right there between your succulents and your self-worth.
Today’s “bespoke fitness construction” follows that same script. Boutique boxing gloves with the price tag of a designer handbag. Dumbbells that cost more than a used car but look better than any furniture piece they share space with. Yoga blocks that double as décor, crafted for the backdrop of your next wellness reel.
Of course, we scoff it’s what we do when something feels out of reach. But watch how quickly the luxury fades into the mainstream: leather-wrapped weight benches swapped for pleather knockoffs at big-box retailers. Handcrafted wooden racks reimagined in veneered MDF at half the cost. The same “Zen garden” aesthetic stuffed into discount warehouse aisles under the comforting label of “inspired by.”
Peloton clones are still stacked in the corner of your local Costco no cedar deck, no bonsai, but the same pitch: You too can have the high-end look… on a payment plan.
Mock it now. Call it ludicrous, performative, a folly of the rich. But when the second or third series lands within reach when that trickle-down hits the middle-market catalogues we applaud ourselves for “not chasing trends” while posting #homegym reveals on social feeds lit by the same design cues that began on the penthouse cedar deck.
Luxury gym equipment doesn’t promise a new way to train. It promises to embed that training inside an aspirational lifestyle one that looks better than it sweats. If your trainers and your gym owners see this coming, they see you. Not just your reps and sets, but your desire for beauty and belonging alongside the brute utility of iron.
Recognize it for what it is. A machine that works best when you don’t notice the gears turning.
You think this has nothing to do with you?
Look around. It already does.