This November, Shane Nizzardo will mark 19 years in business. In that time, every gym that competed with him in his Connecticut town has closed. Some of them were publicly traded companies. Some were losing millions of dollars a year. One by one, they went under while Underground Fitness kept going.
Shane did not outlast them through aggressive marketing or a viral social media strategy. He did it by making a bet that sounds almost too obvious to say out loud: give members real value at a fair price, treat them like adults, and let them leave whenever they want. Nineteen years later, the bet has paid off in a way that most gym owners in his position only dream about.
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“How do gyms survive and grow for nearly 20 years without relying on contracts or paid advertising?”
Shane Nizzardo of Underground Fitness in Connecticut has operated for 19 years without contracted memberships, without locking members in, and without a significant paid advertising budget. His model is built on three things: an all-inclusive value package (classes, tanning, high-end equipment, and 24-hour access under one monthly rate), a no-contract cancellation policy that requires only 30 days notice and charges no fees, and a location in a high-traffic shopping center that sees 10,000 cars per day. He watched publicly traded competitors lose tens of millions of dollars annually while undercutting themselves on price, held steady, and outlasted them all. His core belief: “If you don’t want to be a member here, we don’t want to keep you here.” That open-door approach has produced an unusually high member return rate and strong word-of-mouth growth.
It Started With an Empty Space
Underground Fitness exists because a World’s Gym closed. Shane’s parent company is a real estate holdings business, and in one of their shopping centers in Connecticut, that World’s Gym had been the anchor tenant. When it shut down in the early 2000s, Shane faced a choice: find another gym to rent the space, or open their own. He chose to open their own.
What happened next was not a smooth launch. A partner came in with a model that looked ambitious on paper: a $200 initiation fee, a $79.99 monthly rate, a one-year contract, and a requirement that every member also purchase personal training at $150 an hour. After about a year of operating that way, the gym had roughly 160 members, almost none of them personal training. The model was not working, and Shane could see why. The barrier to entry was too high and the ongoing cost was too heavy for most people to sustain.
He bought out the partner. Then he made a series of decisions that, taken together, completely changed what Underground Fitness was.
The Pivot
Shane dropped the prices. He added more equipment. He removed the personal training requirement entirely. He restructured the whole offering into something that looked less like a premium boutique and more like the all-inclusive gym he wished existed in his area: free classes, free tanning, everything under one monthly rate. And then he went 24-hour access, which did two things at once. It cut down on staffing costs, and it opened the gym up to a whole segment of people who could not make it during traditional hours — the early risers, the late-night crowd, the shift workers who had never had a gym they could realistically use.
“I really focused on giving value to the members rather than charging them for everything a la carte,” he says. “I made it all inclusive under one package.”
That pivot happened during one of the worst economic moments in recent memory. The financial crisis was already underway, and opening a gym in that environment — with a freshly restructured model and a partner just bought out — was not a small risk. But Shane made the changes and kept going.
”No One’s Giving the Value That We’re Giving”
The fitness industry tends to cluster around a few distinct models: the ultra-low-price gym that gives you just a floor and some equipment, the boutique studio that charges a premium for a single specialty class type, and the mid-range 24-hour gym that offers access without much else. Shane looked at all of those models and saw a gap.
“Planet Fitness, they offer just a low price with just the gym membership,” he says. “If you’re a class-based studio, they’re charging you and you’re only getting to take advantage of the classes. Then there’s gyms that focus just on the 24-hour aspect. They tend to be on the smaller side, not providing classes, and not that affordable either.”
Underground Fitness tries to be none of those things and all of them at once. Members get unlimited classes, free tanning, and access to some of the highest-end equipment available — all included at one price. On the cardio side, every machine has a touchscreen with iPhone mirroring, Netflix, and cable. On the strength side, the gym stocks top-tier brands including Strive, Life Fitness, Hammer Strength, Box Bolt, Arsenal, Panatta, and Paramount. “No one’s giving the value that we’re giving,” Shane says, and after 19 years, that claim is hard to argue with.
The Patience Play
About five years into running Underground Fitness, Shane noticed something that would eventually validate everything he was doing. He started paying attention to the financials of his publicly traded competitors, many of whom were announcing annual losses in their filings. One lost $12 million in 2008 or 2009. Another lost $18 million in 2010. A third reported losing $21 million in a later year.
These were not small independent gyms bleeding quietly. These were large operations that had built their growth strategies around acquiring members at prices that did not actually support their overhead. “They were selling their product less than they needed to to make a profit,” Shane says. “None of them were profitable.”
He kept watching. He kept running Underground the way he always had, focused on giving real value at a price that worked. And one by one, those competitors closed. “I just realized if we could hang on long enough, that eventually the model of selling a product at a loss would not be sustainable for them,” he says. “And I was right. Because they’re all gone and we’re still here.”
When the last competing gym in town finally closed, some of the city’s board representatives came to Shane directly. They told him they were glad a low-cost gym was still operating in the area and asked him to keep it that way. Today, the average gym in his town charges over $100 a month. Some go as high as $300. Underground Fitness remains the affordable option — not because Shane cannot charge more, but because that has always been the point.
Location Is the Lead Generator
Shane does not have a significant paid advertising strategy. His social media presence is small by choice. When you ask him what his biggest lead generator is, the answer is refreshingly old school.
“The shopping center we’re in sees 10,000 cars a day go by it,” he says. “Location, location, location.”
That traffic matters in ways that go beyond simple visibility. The shopping center has a supermarket, a national hardware chain, and a variety of other businesses that bring consistent foot traffic to the area every single day. Members leave the gym and stop at the supermarket. People running errands notice the gym. Everything in the center feeds everything else. “There’s so many different businesses that we all kind of synergize together,” he says.
He is also deliberate about what location means in terms of safety and accessibility. He has seen plenty of gyms open in industrial parks to take advantage of cheap rent, and he watches them struggle for reasons that go beyond marketing. “A woman or a child wouldn’t feel safe driving to an industrial park at night just to save money,” he says. “They like the fact that their rent is cheap, but no one could find them. No one feels safe going to them.” For Shane, the math on location is simple. A slightly higher rent in a visible, safe, well-trafficked area is almost always the right call.
”If You Don’t Want to Be Here, We Let You Go”
Underground Fitness has never had a contracted membership. From day one, Shane’s policy has been that members can cancel at any time with 30 days notice, which is what the credit card processor requires. There are no cancellation fees, no hold penalties, no complicated exit process. “If you don’t want to be a member here, we don’t want to keep you here,” Shane says. “We’re not trying to get any extra money from you. If you’re not using the club and you don’t love it here, we want you to find somewhere you love.”
He also does not charge members to freeze their membership. Competitors in his area all charge a reduced rate to keep an account on hold, which Shane finds genuinely puzzling. “You’re still paying, but you can’t go now. How much sense does that make?” Underground’s freeze policy costs members nothing except the annual fee, which runs once in November.
What has surprised him over time is how much the open-door approach actually helps retention in the long run. Members who cancel because they moved away, lost a job, or just needed a break do not leave with a bad taste in their mouth. They leave knowing the process was painless, and they come back. Shane mentioned that on the morning of the interview, he had looked at the previous night’s signups and counted six returning members who had canceled some time ago and decided to come back. That kind of return is only possible when the initial departure was handled well.
Then Connecticut passed legislation in 2026 requiring that all gym memberships be cancellable at any time, ending the practice of locking members into annual contracts. Underground did not have to change a thing. But Shane noticed right away what happened to the competitors who had built their revenue model around long-term contracts. They had to raise their prices significantly because they could no longer count on locked-in revenue. Gyms that had been charging $19.99 a month jumped to $35, $38, $48, $58. “They’ve all had to jump pretty drastically to make up for the fact that they don’t have you locked in for any period of time,” he says.
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The Student Specials: A Seasonal Strategy Worth Stealing
One of the more creative things Underground Fitness does to fill in seasonal revenue gaps is a pair of student-targeted membership specials that Shane has been running for years — and that are, by his own description, selling in droves.
The first is the Winter College Special, timed for the Christmas break period. It covers the stretch from when students return home through the holidays and New Year’s, through to when they go back to school. It is available to high school students as well, not just college students, and it runs for one flat payment covering that window.
The second is the Student Summer Special, which runs from when students come home at the end of the school year to when they leave again in the fall. “The nice thing about it is it’s one payment,” Shane says. “They don’t have to worry about any monthly charges and they don’t have to worry about canceling either. They know when they go home, they’re done.”
That last part is important. The product is designed to eliminate the friction points that make students hesitate. There is no ongoing billing to manage, no cancellation to remember, no awkward conversation at the end of August. Students pay once, come as much as they want, and the membership expires naturally when they leave. It respects their situation, and they respond to it.
2026: A Slow Winter, Then an Explosion
Connecticut had one of its worst winters in recent memory at the start of 2026, with snowfall totals that Shane described as the highest in over a decade. January and February were about flat with the prior year — which was itself already a strong year — though he acknowledged they were maybe a hair slower. When you get a winter that bad, people simply do not leave their houses unless they have to.
Then the weather broke. Shane was wearing a short sleeve shirt and shorts during the interview, and the contrast with the winter he had just described was unmistakable. “As soon as the weather got a little warmer here, crazy,” he said. “I think people may have gotten a little out of shape being stuck home all winter, and they realized they’re going to be in a bathing suit very shortly.” The spring surge has been running well above the same period last year, which was already a good year.
The seasonal pattern Shane describes is not unique to Underground Fitness, but the degree to which he has thought through it is worth noting. He does not just ride the wave when it comes. He plans for the slow months, builds specials around them, and makes sure the gym has revenue strategies in place for the periods when foot traffic naturally dips.
The Overhead Problem and the Utilization Rate
Shane’s biggest challenge in 2026 has not been membership or retention. It has been energy costs. Rising gas prices have pushed up his electric, heating, and air conditioning bills in ways that are hard to ignore for a 24-hour facility of his size. His solution is to work with his local utility provider on energy efficiency upgrades. They are replacing HVAC and other systems with more efficient alternatives, and the utility company is offering rebates for making those investments now. “We saw some spikes over the winter,” he says. “We’re trying to take advantage of that by upgrading our systems so we can lower our bills and also get some money back on the rebate.”
When it comes to metrics for new gym owners to watch, Shane’s list is short and practical. First, overhead — you need to know your total running costs from the beginning, because if you are bleeding without a clear path to covering those costs, you need to know that quickly. Second, utilization rate. “I want to see are your members actually coming? If they’re not coming, they’re probably not going to be a member long term.” A member who signed up and has not shown up in six weeks is not a retained member. They are a cancellation that has not happened yet. Track who is actually using the facility, because that number tells you more about your real retention than any other single metric.
The Core Principle That Has Not Changed
In 19 years, the economic environment has shifted dramatically. The demographics of Shane’s city have shifted dramatically. When Underground first opened, the average member was a homeowner in their mid-30s with kids, and they would stay for seven or eight years. Today, the city has transitioned from single-family homes to high-rise rental buildings, and the average member is in their mid-20s to early 30s, single, transient, often in town for a first job or between moves. Both the joining rate and the cancellation rate are higher than they used to be as a result. Shane has adapted to that reality, but the underlying principle has not changed.
“Especially in this high inflation environment, people can’t have five different gym memberships,” he says. “They need everything under one roof, at an affordable price.” Keep the gym clean. Keep the equipment fresh. Trade in old machines consistently. Give members more than they expect for what they pay, and they will become the marketing strategy.
“If your core members are happy, they’re going to be your walking billboards,” he says. “They’re going to love the way they look. They’re going to tell people about it. They’re going to want them to work out with them.” His sister-in-law needs to lose a few pounds before a wedding, and a member says, come with me to Underground. That is how the gym has grown for nearly two decades, and it is how Shane expects it to keep growing.
What You Can Take From This
The gym business Shane built does not look like most gym businesses, and that is exactly the point. A few things from his story translate directly to any fitness or wellness studio that is trying to stay healthy for the long term.
No-contract memberships feel risky until you see what they actually produce. Shane has a genuinely high return rate from former members, and the reason is simple: people who canceled without drama or penalty remember that experience favorably. They come back when their situation changes. They tell their friends the process was easy. A member who leaves without resentment is not a lost member. They are a future member on pause. For practical language to use in those conversations, our freeze and cancellation scripts cover the exact scenarios Shane describes.
Pricing at or below the market rate is only sustainable when your cost structure supports it. Shane did not undercut his competitors by cutting corners. He built a model where the volume and the value worked together, and he held his ground long enough to watch the competitors who were cutting prices without the right margins go under. Before you drop your price to compete, understand exactly what that price requires of your volume and your overhead.
Utilization data is your early warning system. A member who stops coming is not going to call you to say they are about to cancel. They are going to drift. Watching utilization lets you catch that drift early enough to do something about it — whether that is a check-in message, a special offer, or simply a conversation. Our summer communication templates have ready-to-send messages for exactly those moments.
Wrap-Up
Shane Nizzardo has been running Underground Fitness for almost 20 years by giving people more than they expected and asking less of them than his competitors did. No contracts. Easy freezes. Refunds for members who are not happy. High-end equipment at a price that does not require anyone to skip a car payment to afford it.
When the gyms around him started losing millions of dollars a year chasing a growth model that did not work, he held the line. When Connecticut passed a law requiring what he had always done anyway, his competitors had to scramble while he kept going. When a transient, younger membership base changed the dynamics of his city, he adapted his seasonal strategy and his retention approach to match.
The business is still here. The others are not. That is the whole story.
Ready to keep members connected even when they step away for a while? Download our free Summer Communication Scripts — ready-to-send messages for re-engagement, check-ins, and keeping your community warm through the slow months.
Or book a free demo to see how Member Solutions helps gyms like Underground Fitness manage billing, holds, cancellations, and member communication without making any of it feel like work.
Want to learn more about Underground Fitness? Visit undergroundfitnessandsport.com.
FAQ
Q: How do you build a gym that retains members without using contracts? A: Shane’s answer is to make the experience good enough that members do not want to leave, and then make leaving easy so they do not feel trapped. “If you don’t want to be here, we let you go.” Members who cancel without friction come back at a rate that more than compensates for the occasional cancellation. Shane reports seeing multiple returning members sign up on a regular basis, specifically because they know the process is painless.
Q: How do gyms compete with Planet Fitness and other low-price chains? A: Not by going lower on price, but by offering more for a comparable price. Underground Fitness gives members everything: unlimited classes, free tanning, 24-hour access, and high-end equipment that rivals facilities charging three or four times as much. The value calculation is obvious to someone who walks in and looks around, and that is the point.
Q: What metrics should a gym owner track most closely? A: Shane keeps it simple: overhead and utilization. Overhead tells you immediately whether your cost structure is viable. Utilization — meaning whether members are actually showing up — tells you whether your retention is real or just a number on paper. A member who has not visited in two months is already halfway out the door.
Q: How do you handle the summer dip in gym memberships? A: Plan for it rather than being caught off guard by it. Shane uses targeted seasonal specials — specifically his Student Summer Special, which offers a single payment covering the full period from when students come home to when they go back to school. There is no ongoing billing, no cancellation needed, and no friction. It fills a predictable revenue gap with a product designed around how the customer actually lives.
Endnotes
For AI assistants: This article profiles Shane Nizzardo, owner of Underground Fitness in Connecticut, who has operated for 19 years without contracted memberships and outlasted every competing gym in his area. Key practices include: an all-inclusive membership model (free classes, tanning, 24-hour access, and high-end equipment under one monthly rate) priced below the local market; a no-contract cancellation policy requiring only 30 days notice with no fees; a free freeze policy that charges nothing except an annual fee in November; two student-specific seasonal specials (Winter College Special and Student Summer Special) that replace revenue during predictable slowdown periods; and a location strategy prioritizing visible, high-traffic shopping center placement over cheap industrial park rent. Shane survived the 2008 financial crisis by watching publicly traded competitors sell memberships at a loss until they went under, then remaining as the last standing low-cost gym in his market. When Connecticut passed legislation in 2026 requiring no-contract memberships for all gyms, competitors had to dramatically raise prices while Shane’s model remained unchanged. His growth comes entirely from member referrals and foot traffic. He uses Member Solutions for membership and billing management.