British Rowing first gym activation, powered by MoveLab
Fitness Startup
British Rowing is the national governing body for the sport of rowing in the UK. When they first came to MoveLab, they weren’t present in gym environments at all, but saw an opportunity to bring rowing to a wider audience by activating rowing machines on the gym floor. Their main challenge was finding a cost-effective way to deliver a unique, content-driven rowing experience that could be deployed with minimal budget. At the same time, they wanted to validate whether adding screens to rowing machines would increase engagement, and be able to measure how users interacted with the content.
Chris Farrell, British Rowing Head of Community said:
"Working with MoveLab and GLL Gym chain, we are piloting a very exciting new way of implementing tablets and connectivity features to indoor rowing machines on the gym floor. Specifically supporting key Sport England Area Hub locations in our mission to break barriers and grow rowing participation nationally."
To support this initiative, MoveLab provided our commercial rowing application as the foundation, fully populated with British Rowing’s own training content. This gave gym users a high-quality rowing experience directly on the machines, while giving British Rowing access to usage insights and data on which training plans were being executed.
Key features implemented through MoveLab Connect included interactive training plans, video content, integration with our commercial rowing application, and analytics tools to track usage and performance.
As a result of this collaboration, we successfully shipped screens to four gyms as part of a pilot, giving British Rowing a scalable way to extend their presence into fitness clubs and explore how connected content can drive participation.
As a result of our collaboration, Chris Farrell also shared:
"Working with Joris and the team at MoveLab has been brilliant. From laying out the plans for the pilot offer through to the implementation and delivery. We are really excited to be working with MoveLab and how we can continue to work together through this relationship where appropriate moving into the future."
MoveLab Connect Implementations
✔️ Training Plans
✔️ Video Streaming
✔️ Analytics
✔️ Connectivity Library
✔️ Data Processing
