About Fitness Management

Fitness Management

Fitness Management (fitness MANAGEMENT international, fMi) is the German-language B2B magazine for the fitness and health industry — one of the highest-circulation leading journals of the sector, the title the industry's operators read. Owners and decision-makers of fitness and health facilities in the German-speaking world receive the magazine, as do the industry's future specialists: students of the Deutsche Hochschule für Prävention und Gesundheitsmanagement (DHfPG) and participants of the BSA-Akademie, the university and academy that train the industry's managers, trainers, and health specialists. With a print run doubled to 20,000 copies per issue since 2018, the magazine covers the industry's management topics — concepts, law, startups, HR, marketing and sales — alongside training, health, nutrition, psychology, tanning, and corporate health management (BGM). It is the management handbook for the people who run Germany's fitness studios as businesses — and the B2B journal that has grown with the industry it serves.

Overview

fitness MANAGEMENT international is the B2B title for the fitness industry's operators: the owners and decision-makers of fitness and health facilities who run the studios as businesses — the entrepreneurs and managers who decide on the concept, the equipment, the staff, the pricing, and the marketing. The readership also includes the next generation — the students of the DHfPG and the BSA-Akademie participants, the future managers and trainers the industry trains, who receive the magazine as part of their education and carry its management knowledge into the studios they will run. The print run of 20,000 copies per issue (doubled in 2018) makes fMi one of the sector's highest-circulation magazines — the B2B journal with the widest reach in the German-speaking fitness industry, the title that connects the established operators with the profession's future.

The coverage spans the national and international industry's news, the concepts, the management, the law, the startups (Existenzgründung), the personnel, the marketing and sales — and the specialist topics of training, health, nutrition, psychology, tanning (Besonnung), and BGM (betriebliches Gesundheitsmanagement, corporate health management), the full spectrum of what a fitness facility's operator must know. The magazine is the industry's management handbook: the topics that decide whether a studio thrives — the concept that differentiates it, the staff that runs it, the marketing that fills it, the law that regulates it — alongside the training science the members expect and the health trends that shape the demand, the complete professional knowledge of the fitness business.

History

fitness MANAGEMENT international grew with the German fitness industry — the sector that expanded from the bodybuilding studios and the aerobics wave to the 12.36-million-member, 6.25-billion-euro industry documented in the 2026 "Eckdaten der deutschen Fitnesswirtschaft" study (Deloitte/DSSV), with the large chains' scale effects, the M&A consolidation, and the smart-gym automation as the contemporary dynamics. The magazine's 2018 circulation doubling to 20,000 copies per issue reflects the industry's growth and the title's position as its leading B2B journal — the magazine that grew with the market it serves.

The brand is closely tied to the DHfPG/BSA education group — the Deutsche Hochschule für Prävention und Gesundheitsmanagement and the BSA-Akademie, the industry's university and academy — whose students and participants receive the magazine, the pipeline that connects the education to the profession. The managing director is Janosch Marx, the host of the "Fitness im Ohr" podcast, who discusses the industry's key figures with Deloitte's sport-business lead Stefan Ludwig and the DSSV treasurer Ralf Capelan — the podcast that brings the industry's data and decision-makers to the operators' ears, the audio extension of the magazine's management journalism. The brand's YouTube channel carries the trailers and industry content; the fmi.news short links serve the social channels — the digital infrastructure around the print title, the magazine's community in the channels where the industry lives.

Coverage and Content

The "Fitness im Ohr" podcast exemplifies the coverage: the 2026 episode on the fitness boom discusses the industry's growth drivers, the 12.36 million members and 6.25 billion euros in revenue, the large chains' dominance through scale effects and clear positioning, the M&A consolidation that is sustainably changing the market structure, the strategic price increases that secure profitability and investment capacity, the aggregators' role as platforms that expand access and change usage behavior, and the smart-gym and automation concepts gaining importance — with the 15-million-member target for 2030 as the ambition, reachable but demanding. The magazine's topics mirror the industry's agenda: the concepts that work, the management that runs the studios, the law that regulates them, the startups that found them, the personnel that staff them, and the marketing and sales that fill them — the full management cycle of the fitness business.

The specialist topics — training, health, nutrition, psychology, tanning, and corporate health management — serve the operators' service knowledge: the training science that keeps the members progressing, the health trends that shape the demand, the nutrition and psychology that complete the offering, and the BGM business that extends the studio into the corporate market — the company health programs that bring the studio's services to the employers. The national and international industry news keep the operators current; the concepts and management articles provide the actionable knowledge — the magazine as the operator's continuing education, the professional development that runs alongside the daily business of the studio.

Organization and Ownership

fitness MANAGEMENT is published within the DHfPG/BSA-Akademie education group's media activities — the Saarbrücken-based education group whose Deutsche Hochschule für Prävention und Gesundheitsmanagement and BSA-Akademie train the industry's specialists, and whose students and participants receive the magazine, the readership pipeline that keeps the title connected to the profession's next generation. The managing director (Geschäftsführer) is Janosch Marx. The brand's social infrastructure — fmi.news short links for Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and WhatsApp, the news at fmi.news/news, the Google Maps business profile, the YouTube channel — serves the industry's digital community: the operators, the students, and the suppliers in the social channels where the industry talks.

The economics combine the controlled-circulation distribution to the industry's owners, decision-makers, students, and academy participants — the qualified readership the advertisers pay to reach — with advertising from the industry's suppliers: the equipment manufacturers, the software providers, the tanning and nutrition companies, and the service providers that sell to the studios, the B2B advertising market of the fitness industry. Circulation: 20,000 copies per issue (since 2018). Financial details are not publicly confirmed.

Digital Presence

The brand's digital home spans fitnessmanagement.de and the fmi.news short-link ecosystem: the news at fmi.news/news — the current fitness news, industry information, and videos — the Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and WhatsApp channels, the YouTube channel with the trailers and industry content (the 01/2026 trailer's "Performance is Health"), and the "Fitness im Ohr" podcast with the industry's key figures discussing the market's data and dynamics. The Google Maps business profile anchors the location; the DHfPG/BSA-Akademie YouTube channel cross-promotes the content.

For the fitness industry's operators — the studio owners and managers who run the 12.36-million-member industry's facilities, who must master the concept, the staff, the marketing, the law, and the training science — fitness MANAGEMENT international's combination of print depth, podcast, video, and social news provides the management knowledge of the trade: the concepts, the law, the marketing, and the training science that decide whether a studio thrives in the consolidating, digitalizing, automating fitness market — the B2B journal for the industry that keeps Germany moving — and the management knowledge that keeps its studios thriving.