Should a Gym Owner Avoid Debt? Rethinking Growth in Your Gym Business and Fitness Business

A gym business needs more than good coaching and a room full of equipment. It needs money to operate, adapt, and grow. And if you own a fitness business, you eventually face a question that gets uncomfortable fast: As a gym owner, are you willing to borrow money to move forward?

Some people hear “debt” and immediately think trouble. Others see a tool that can create cash flow, buy breathing room, or fund an opportunity they could not otherwise afford.

I lean toward the second camp. Debt helped me build my businesses. That does not mean every loan is smart or every struggling gym needs to borrow. It means refusing to consider financing can be just as consequential as taking it.

The useful question is not simply, “Is debt bad?” It is, “What would this money allow me to do, and how would that improve the business?” That is a conversation worth having before another opportunity passes you by.

Table of Contents

• Built To Grow Rebrands to Gym Business Coach
• Why Entrepreneurship Requires Financial Risk
• Dave Ramsey vs. Robert Kiyosaki: Debt Mindsets
• Betting on Yourself as a Gym Owner
• How Debt Helped Build Our Gym Business
• SBA Loans, Credit Lines & Gym Funding Options
• Why Gym Marketing Requires Capital
• Rethinking Bankruptcy and Business Risk
• Why Did You Start Your Gym Business?
• Using Business Debt for Measurable ROI
• Final Advice for Gym Owners
• Podcast Outro & Resources

Built To Grow Rebrands to Gym Business Coach

First, a little housekeeping. Built To Grow is transitioning to the Gym Business Coach Podcast.

You will start seeing different artwork, a new YouTube channel, and updated branding. We are also building a bigger studio and preparing a new website at gymbusinesscoach.com.

The reason is pretty simple: gym business coaching is what we do. The new name makes that clearer. No mystery, no dramatic reinvention. Just a name that tells you what you are getting.

The focus stays the same: helping gym owners build stronger businesses, make better decisions, and create something that supports their lives instead of swallowing them whole.

And money decisions are a huge part of that. You can care deeply about your clients and still need a serious conversation about cash flow. In fact, if you want to keep serving those clients, you cannot avoid it.

Why Entrepreneurship Requires Financial Risk

The definition of an entrepreneur includes taking on greater than normal financial risk to run a business. That is worth sitting with for a minute.

We like the title. We like the independence. We like being the person who built something. But some business owners want all of that without accepting the uncertainty that comes with it.

Financial risk does not always mean a loan. Leaving a steady paycheck is a risk. Signing a lease is a risk. Going through a month without knowing exactly what next month’s revenue will be is a risk.

If you opened a gym business, you have already crossed that line.

So the question is not whether you are willing to take any risk. You already have. The question is which risks you are willing to take now, and whether those decisions make sense for where you want to go.

There is no universal number that defines “greater than normal.” Everybody has a different starting point, set of obligations, and tolerance for uncertainty. A decision that feels manageable to one gym owner may feel enormous to another.

But refusing to move is still a decision. If your fitness business is declining and fixing the problem requires resources, doing nothing does not remove the risk. It leaves the existing risk in place.

Being cautious and being stuck are not the same thing. Make sure you know which one you are choosing.

Dave Ramsey vs. Robert Kiyosaki: Debt Mindsets

Two well-known financial personalities help illustrate the extremes of this conversation: Dave Ramsey and Robert Kiyosaki.

Their broad approaches to debt are very different. Understanding that difference can help you recognize the assumptions behind your own decisions.

The debt-free approach

Ramsey’s philosophy centers on getting out of debt, controlling spending, and avoiding purchases you cannot afford. Cut back now so you can enjoy greater financial freedom later.

That might mean driving an older car, keeping your lifestyle simple, and paying cash instead of borrowing. The appeal is obvious: fewer payments, less pressure, and less dependence on creditors.

If debt has caused problems in your life, this approach may feel like a breath of fresh air. There is real comfort in not owing anybody.

The leverage approach

Kiyosaki’s philosophy puts more emphasis on using borrowed money to acquire assets that produce cash flow. In that framework, the important distinction is between something that pays you and something you keep paying for.

The goal is not debt for its own sake. The goal is using other people’s money to create income and build wealth.

Those are very different lenses. One starts with reducing obligations. The other asks whether an obligation can help produce a larger financial return.

Where do you fall?

Most people land somewhere between the two. You may refuse to finance a lifestyle purchase but feel comfortable financing a business improvement. Or you may be fine with a property loan while getting nervous about borrowing for marketing.

Your upbringing matters here. So do your past mistakes. If you watched your family struggle with debt, that experience probably follows you into your gym owner decisions.

Just recognize that a belief formed around personal spending may not answer every question about business investment. Your fitness business deserves a decision based on its numbers and opportunities, not only your emotional reaction to the word “loan.”

Betting on Yourself as a Gym Owner

When I was opening my gym, I had plenty of conversations with friends and family who could not quite see what I saw.

Many were not business owners. They understood a job with a regular paycheck. Opening a business looked uncertain, and they were not wrong about that.

My thinking was different. If it failed, I believed I could recover. I was healthy, educated, and willing to work. I could go back out and earn a living. Failure would be a setback, not the end of my ability to do something useful.

More importantly, I believed I could make the gym work.

That belief did not eliminate the late nights or the questions. I have had plenty of moments wondering whether a decision would work out. Confidence is not the absence of doubt. It is being willing to act while accepting that the outcome is not guaranteed.

My experience investing in other people’s ideas has also shaped that attitude. Several of those investments have been disappointing. In some cases, I do not know whether I will ever get my money back.

When I invest in my own business, I have more influence over what happens next. Not total control. Nobody has that. But I can work on the offer, the sales process, the service, and the execution.

Betting on yourself means accepting responsibility for the work after the money arrives.

It does not mean believing you are incapable of failure. It means having a reason to believe that, with the right resources and a real plan, you can improve the outcome.

You had some version of that belief when you opened your gym business. If you have lost it, that is worth examining before you make your next financial decision.

How Debt Helped Build Our Gym Business

I would not be where I am today without debt. That is the honest answer.

I have used financing in real estate and land deals, and I have worked through roughly four or five SBA loans across the businesses. Those loans helped fund things like opening, relocating, and remodeling.

We did not always have every dollar sitting in an account before we made a move. Borrowing allowed us to do things we otherwise could not have done at that time.

A gym business does not move in a perfectly straight line. There are stronger months, weaker months, changes in the market, and periods when you need to adjust. Even a business with a future can run into trouble if it does not have enough money to get through the present.

That is what I mean by runway: enough financial breathing room to keep operating while you make the changes that matter.

What the pandemic made obvious

COVID was an extreme example. Gyms faced shutdowns and severe revenue disruption. For us, access to financing mattered when normal operations were interrupted.

Economic Injury Disaster Loans, or EIDL loans, were part of that conversation. Many gym owners we knew used them to help keep their businesses going.

Those loans were not free money. They created obligations. But they also provided capital at a time when businesses were under extraordinary pressure.

Our experience reinforced something important: owing money and having a viable business can be a better position than refusing debt and having no path forward.

That is not a claim that every business could have been saved by borrowing. It is a reminder that access to capital can change your options. What you do with that access still matters enormously.

SBA Loans, Credit Lines & Gym Funding Options

If you need capital, start by learning what is actually available. Too many gym owners rule out financing without ever having a conversation with a lender.

Banks are in the business of lending money. That does not mean approval is automatic. It means asking about your options is a normal business activity, not some embarrassing confession that you need help.

A sensible starting point is the bank that already handles your business deposits. Explain how long you have been operating, what you want to accomplish, and why you need the funds.

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