Imagine a fitness class where you’re given real-time feedback on the weights you’re using, the right number of reps to do, and whether or not your form is up to snuff. Now imagine the critique coming not from an onsite personal trainer, but through your earbuds or via a giant LED screen thanks to multi-sensor tracking, object detection systems, and artificial intelligence.

That’s what you’ll find at Lumin Fitness, a pioneering fitness studio and franchise concept debuting to the public on Sept. 9 at a 2,600-square-foot space in Las Colinas.

[Photo: Lumin Fitness]

Billed as The World’s Smartest Fitness Studio, the state-of-the-art facility is the brainchild of co-founders Brandon Bean, a former CEO of Dallas-based Gold’s Gym, and Omeed Shams, previously chief executive at Coppell’s gaming app Kwest.

Bean, who left Gold’s early in 2019, said Lumin was launched in Dallas that same year and spent four years on research and development.

With “big-box” and mid-level players in the health club industry losing their sheen, he saw a niche for an “intelligent, interactive and individualized” boutique fitness studio with “a sustainable advantage through technology long-term,” Bean said.

[Photo: Lumin Fitness]

Enter Lumin, which features wall-to-wall LED screens and the latest advances in AI, digital display, motion tracking, and object detection, all aimed at creating an immersive, hyper-personalized fitness experience.

Solo sessions and 40-minute Lumin classes, held between 5 a.m. and 9:45 p.m., currently provide a High-Intensity Functional Training (HIFT) workout that focuses on the likes of aerobic and muscular fitness.

The studio’s immersive environment is scheduled to change every six weeks with the help of generative AI, Bean said, adding that ecosystems called “Neon,” “Space,” and “Graffiti Alley”—the latter mimicking a New York City street scene—will keep the surroundings fresh.

The goal is leveraging “technology and innovation to make fitness fun,” he said.

[Photo: Lumin Fitness]

Backed by ‘millions’ from private investors

The company-owned studio on North O’Connor Boulevard in Irving’s Las Colinas development was designed as a prototype for Lumin Fitness, which is seeking entrepreneurial partners to grow the concept through franchising.

To spearhead that effort, it’s hired Craig Sherwood, another Gold’s Gym alumnus, as chief development officer.

In addition to its proprietary technology, the startup’s advantages for franchisees include minimal staffing—each studio only requires one employee or coach, Bean said—and operational efficiencies around marketing, membership sales, and tech support.

[Photo: Lumin Fitness]

While over the next decade the global market will support 2,000-plus Lumin Fitness franchises—1,500 of them in the U.S.—Bean said “we really want to grow slow and properly.”

The company, which has 20 full-time employees, was initially bootstrapped before tapping into a network of technology-based private investors for capital “well into the millions” of dollars, Bean said.

Driven by Millennial and Gen Z customers, established boutique studios like F45 Training and Orangetherapy Fitness account for a growing part of the health club industry.

However, “nobody is really out there doing what we’re doing,” Bean said. “We think this is something that will catch on, and there will be a ‘smart fitness’ category going forward.

“It’s not going to replace all the other categories out there,” he said. “But we think that for digital natives—consumers who grew up with an iPhone in their hands, who expect a hyper-personalized, gamified experience—this type of experience will really resonate with them.”

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