I've been a gym rat for almost 20 years now, and I'm probably the worst customer for gyms. I only workout at 24*7 gyms and being an early bird I get there at 430 and I have pretty much the whole gym for myself. I am there 6 days a week and I always shower at the gym. Further, I use the corporate discounts available to join the memberships. With all that, it comes down to approx. $50 a month for membership and I used to think that it was on the higher side (to be fair post covid it increased from $40 to $50). But reading this article was an eye opener, I guess I need to thank all those people who subsidize my gym fees, and I am now more accepting of the membership fees.
Finally I must add, all the friends (more like acquaintances) you make at the gym are absolutely crucial to motivate oneself and also just have a positive social interaction. I guess that perk of the gym membership is not even quantifiable.
I feel really thankful and privileged to have gyms around now, I will never take them for granted going forward.
>I'm probably the worst customer for gyms [...] I get there at 430
no that's the best customer for gyms. The ACTUAL way gyms make money is by heavily over subscribing a fixed amount of resources (machines/benches/space). You finding some random time to go to the gym instead of just canceling has barely any marginal cost over some one just not going and you'll talk positively about having a membership.
Reverse pricing is much more enjoyable for people. Free lattes in the early morning hours, free protein shakes during other off hours, early bird/night owl discount when you renew for the long term if you badge in during off-peak hours exclusively.
Pay as you go in general is not popular. It creates an incentive to not use the product or service and makes people feel bad about using it. Meanwhile upfront payments make you feel good about using the service. You already paid for it, using it is getting your monies worth.
And if you can’t build a habit around using their service, you won’t stay a customer for long.
The ideal customer is someone who pays but doesn’t use it. But these people tend to not renew their subscriptions. So realistically you want someone who habitually uses it and will remain a customer forever.
I think the Planet Fitness model is to appeal to non-gym-goers, and to also be cheap enough where people carry the membership year to year, because it’s not a big enough charge to hurt, while making the customer feel like they have some good intentions by having the membership.
People love to bag on Planet Fitness. I suppose they brought it on themselves, but things have moved on. I have multiple gym memberships: one to a world renowned powerlifting gym, another to an athletic training facility popular with professional athletes, and my local planet fitness. I have that because it’s closest to my son’s mother’s house (we meet there a couple of times per week) and it’s my “travel gym membership” since 24 Hour Fitness closed in our town.
All that lead up to say: the numerous PFs I visit are regularly busy and people work out there quite regularly. I see a lot of familiar faces at each of the locations. Their clientele is no worse or less dedicated than those of the other gyms.
Also, having visited their gyms in a number of coastal metro cities I’ll say that they do a really great job of maintaining their equipment.
I'd be curious to see the numbers on Planet Fitness. At $10/month, what is their percentage of members who regularly show vs never showing up. $10/month is easy to forget about, like a steaming service. A gym charging $50 or $100+/month is harder to ignore and I assume would have a higher percentage of members actually showing up. Not because people who pay more will be more likely to turn into gym rats, but because there would be fewer people brushing off the monthly charge as a rounding error in their budget over time.
I've been to a Planet Fitness once as a guest of someone while on vacation. It as well kept, I was able to find some equipment for a good workout, and it was pretty crowded (in August), and I'm sure there are a lot of regulars. The question is, what percentage of the overall membership are those regulars?
I'm not sure if they still do the pizza thing, but that always struck me as odd and what gave them a bad image in my book. I never wanted to be a member of a gym that appeared to be sabotaging its members. It makes it seem like the gym isn't invested in the success of its members. I felt the same way about the dentist giving me candy after a cleaning when I was a kid.
My gym charges cancellation fees for not attending any group class you might have signed up for. It's kinda motivating to get yourself up there but sometimes you just don't sign up because you are not sure if you will feel motivated enough to go in that day. Either way, they make money.
Probably about 6 cents. Assuming a 30 minute shower with a 2.5 gpm flow rate and 110F average temperature. Maybe less if they have a more efficient water heater than resistive electric at ~11 cents per kwh.
Don’t forget that showers are expensive to build and maintain. I would guess that the amount of labor that goes into keeping the showers clean and running is far higher than electricity costs.
This. 100%. In an developed country, the lifetime labour cost to maintain a clean changing room and shower room far exceeds the build cost. To be clear: A different way to think about this issue: As long as cleaning staff are paid living wages, I think this is a good way to expand your economy. Some people want to use commercial gyms; let's make it the source of good jobs.
I personally don't understand the people who wouldn't want to take a 30 minute shower.
So long as the water stays hot and you have the time, it's one of the more relaxing things you can do at home. Baths use way more water, and if you don't live somewhere like Japan, they aren't deep and cool off quickly without a bath warmer. Its also kind of gross to sit in a bath without already showering and getting clean before you get in.
If you have a speaker in the bathroom you can listen to an audio book. Long showers have only gotten better with water proof phones becoming more common. As a kid I would put my Gameboy in a Ziploc bag just so I could stay in longer.
Every shower head is a minor restriction on flow compared to the bath faucet. It may or not be negligible. But a bath drawn for the same faucet runtime will use more water than the same runtime for a shower every time. The crossover in cost happens when the shower uses more water than the bath. That should happen very shortly after the time it takes to fill a bath. At one house, our bath took 40 minutes to fill, another 15-20, and another took under 10.
Only on HN someone wonders what's the cost of a shower, another person actually attempts to calculate that, and then we get into a discussion whether 30 minute showers are a good thing or not. IMO 30 minutes is a bit excessive but I do enjoy longer showers myself ;)
In grad school, many years ago, I would plug the drain and let the tub fill while I showered. I would pull the plug and let the tub drain once the water had cooled. This way my bathroom would warm up a bit. I suppose this might have saved a few cents.
These days you can get passive ‘waste water heat recovery’ systems that sit beneath a bath or shower tray - warming your inbound cold water with your outflow, so you use less new hot water (or have to heat it less).
I think a 30 minute shower contributes to a global water shortage in the same way that plastic straws contribute.
The link you’ve provided says 90% of water usage is on the generation of electricity, food, and products.
I think the GP should continue to take 30 minute showers, because even if they stop, even if every person stops, it’ll have a negligible effect on water usage.
What do you mean it's a finite resource, I take a shower with some water, it gets dumped, cleaned then I can use it again. Does me taking a longer shower just disintegrate the water?
With unlimited energy, there's pretty much infinite water in oceans to desalinate. Energy and its clean production and storage is the only thing to worry about.
Many years ago, at the end of a fifty mile race, I collected my bag and went to the locker room. When I got in, I guy was leaning against the wall, with the showerhead kind of over his shoulder (this was a junior high school). I undressed very slowly, for I was quite sore from the run. I took what I thought was a long shower, and then dressed very slowly and packed my stuff the same way. As I left the locker room, the guy was still leaning against the wall with water running over him. I didn't blame him.
No, I ran 50 miles to middle school, or rather to a middle school. The 2024 JFK Memorial 50 Mile will finish at the Springfield Middle School in Williamsport, Maryland. I presume that it was the same school back then--I don't think Williamsport has the population for two middle schools.
I was 27, about twice the age I was when I finished 8th grade.
Shiiiiiitttttt! 30 minutes is a quick shower to me. Idk but I typically budget about an hour for a shower, then 20 to 30 to get ready. I figure most at the gym are just rinsing though.
More hair means more product, more lathering, and significantly more rinsing. When my hair is short, I can wash it in a few seconds. With my hair below my shoulders, it can take more time to clean than an entire shower took with short hair.
The 4:30am customer is the top favourite as they are much more likely to stick around for the long haul. The customer who never comes sounds nice, but they are likely to be a short-lived customer.
Just look at the signs in the gym to see what they hate. Leaving equipment out, and messing up the toilets (apparently someone spits gum in the urinals?) is what annoys the staff at the gym I go to.
Former janitor here: people do this all the time, everywhere. On the scale of terrible things people do in the restrooms, this one is pretty mild -- but don't do it. Have a thought for the person who cleans up your mess.
>>Finally I must add, all the friends (more like acquaintances) you make at the gym are absolutely crucial to motivate oneself
Yes, but it's personality specific; the absolute worst part of the gym, to me, is "other people". The sweaty, macho, over-enthusiastic bros with specific kind of humour (you can tell me that's not all or even most of them; doesn't matter, my subconsciousness doesn't believe you! :). The stinky changing rooms and people who don't want to cover anything up. The noise and the loudness and the boisterousness and just... people. So many people. Way too many people. Some of them even try to engage me! Make eye contact or talk to me!
I think I'll stay home and try my elliptical again.
SO I guess, you're right, people at the gym ARE motivational :-)
(don't get me wrong - I'm mostly a people person otherwise; I'm an introvert but nobody believes me as I'm fairly outgoing, make small talk easily, smile and listen and engage people. But gym is where I'm at my most vulnerable, least-confident, and I suppose I have my share of traumatic memories of gyms as a scrawny dorky asthmatic nerdy boy. So I definitely, absolutely, completely, positively, desire no social interaction at the gym right now :)
Not to point out the obvious, but most of this is I think just anxiety.
I remember when I first started exercising, I was a fat alcoholic that was usually the youngest person there and had no idea what he was doing. I was very anxious about potentially doing something wrong, or being taunted or judged. I didn’t know how to use a lot of equipment and it took a long time before I even realized kind of “obvious” stuff like you being able to swap out attachments on cable systems. I knew my body language was glaringly displaying low self confidence and anxiety, and was further psyched out by knowing that it was obvious and I couldn’t do anything about it.
As I went to the gym more I became more self confident and also assured through experience that I wasn’t doing anything wrong and nobody would be a dick to me. I mean, people are dicks sometimes, but usually only out of their own selfishness (like wanting to use something you are, or hogging something they’re not use because of fucking supersets), not malice. There’s always a small chance of a bad interaction along those lines every time you go but the anxiety definitely greatly subsides over time.
Thanks for this brutally honest post! We need more of this on HN.
Some advice from a weakling(!): In most gyms where I have worked-out, you can either ask the staff or a super buff lady/dude on how to best use the equipment. Yes, you feel like a complete idiot for about 6 seconds while asking for help. But then, they are so supportive and friendly. It's weird. If you are a tiny nobody at the gym, the super buffs are more than happy to provide advice if you asking respectfully. Note: Do not ask for help when they are in the middle of a set!
EDIT
Big support for going the gym. Your original post sounds like you were going through some big issues.
You will find that if you go at the times I go, most of these things are not a problem. It's usually only the serious, respectful people who show up at that time. Once I went to the gym around 5pm and OMG, it was the first time ever I felt like why am I here. Never happened again !
And this is why only go to boutique gym where you get personal trainer and whole room full of equipment only for yourself.
I did not know that this kind of arrangement is possible (I used to go only to normal gyms which were overcrowded most of the times).
My wife found it near us and we decided to check it, made a reservation, and now, after a year I cannot imagine going back.
Unfortunately it does come with hefty price tag - about 4-5 times bigger than normal gym subscription.
We have 2, one all you can eat 100 euro/month: Packed like a japanese metro. One on a cinema model where you must pick one of their training programs, each with a different trainer and different times ranging from 300 to 550 euro per month. Only sqash is on an hourly rate and never sold out.
Its easy to squeeze out a few extra reps at home by thinking of what it costs. It really helps how expensive they are. Lol
I lived out of my Toyota 4runner for 5 months. I would go to the Planet Fitness in the morning, take a long shower using their soap and hot water, do some exercise, and leave.
Membership was $5 a month (for a 3-year contract.
Now I live in Romania and gym memberships are $50-70 a month but people actually go there
How do you make friends at the gym? I've been going for years and the only gym friends I have are those from outside the gym that learn that I go to the gym.
It's a tricky one, one which you do need to be very patience for.
Most folk will have headphones, most folk are focusing on their routine / program; themselves.
Being a regular is kind of a must, know that the person you wish to strike conversation with is a regular. Find a time when they're not plugged in to their zone and then start with a compliment. Keep it small and lite, everyone likes to be complimented now on their workout now and then.
Further it on if you've noticed that they've completed a set on new weights, extra speeds et cetera. Then the next time you see them at the gym, make a friendly hello.
Over the periods of small talk and rapport you can make larger gestures such as sharing sets, running next to them if it's a treadmill.
100% on the impact of other people. The first gym I used had lots of big muscular men running around saying things like “I wanna do something ignorant [1]”. But when they saw a normy like me doing crunches incorrectly, they might stop to inform me on proper form. And this was a big gym chain.
I can probably make some space for a home gym, but like I said earlier part of the motivation going to the gym is to see other people working out and being serious at it. I am no longer an advanced "lifter" because of certain injuries and disorders that were diagnosed but I do LOVE the stairmaster at the gym and it is best for my health problems, and that kind of equipment is not something you can easily keep at home (you need a tall ceiling too), so I do need specialized machines in that regards. As far as weight training is concerned I can probably survive on a home gym.
Generally the more advanced you are as a lifter the less specialised machines are going to benefit you. Machines are there for people who don’t know what lifts to do and how to do them with proper technique.
If you glimpse inside the gym of a professional athlete you’ll generally find a comprehensive set of dumbbells, some Olympic bars + plates and a bench and not much else!
On the other hand, barbells are great until you realize you're missing some critical stabilizer and that is why your shoulder or glute has been hurting for years. Then you would kill for a cable machine.
Personally I think smith machines and cable systems are pretty handy for bodybuilding - mostly because they help you isolate certain muscles in a way you can’t do with barbells and dumbbells. Or they allow you to do things like weighted lunges or shrugs or tricep exercises at high weights with much less risk of injury vs doing them with free weights.
Plenty of examples of elite bodybuilders training with them.
> Finally I must add, all the friends (more like acquaintances) you make
> at the gym are absolutely crucial to motivate oneself and also just have
> a positive social interaction.
Eh, been going to a gym weight room for 10 years and it's damn lonely and demoralizing. I'm sure it's different in tiny one-room Olympic weightlifting gyms or whatever.
I'm not in my 20s anymore and I'm not actually that athletic, so 10 years of looking for a gym buddy have yielded nothing for me. Otherwise, the people I recognize at the gym are either the ones who camp out a piece of equipment or just walk around chatting others up and apparently never lifting anything.
Funny how serious / loner type people often open up when you ask them to help spot your bench press. At least that's been my experience, that moment of them helping you out at your vulnerable time somehow lowers the guard / the friction to chatting
+9000. Asking for a spot on a personal big lift is a huge opening to talk with people. The before and after are a great opportunity to be emotionally vulnerable -- "oh, can I do it?" ... "oh, thanks for the 1kg help on the last rep. I really needed that!"
Seriousness aside, I ask fitness folk online what the point is of a gym. If you are serious about it (they are) surely you buy your own equipment and train in the comfort of your own home?
One said he does have his own equipment and that [while people would deny it] the gym is entirely for social interaction.
I suggest watching, broScienceLife, most of his videos are bad, actually they are all bad.
Less weight, put it down gently? If you are a nerd about it you know that Eccentric contractions build more muscle than concentric.
If I know I'm going to bother my neighbors (with parties for example) I buy them gifts and talk with them about it. Sometimes they just want to party along. Can adapt the schedule etc
I'd be dubious of sweeping claims about what is "crucial" to motivate people in general. I would also consider myself a gymrat in the sense you probably mean. I've been fairly consistent about lifting six days a week for roughly three years now. Time missed isn't down to motivation so much as travel, injury, and illness. I'm more than willing to accept that as a form of loosely principled periodization anyway. Cardio has been somewhat less consistent, but that has been far more down to what I imagined I was capable of than motivation. Now that I know I can do it, I've gotten pretty good about running from 20-40 miles a week or so with variance coming down to injury and illness.
This is all at home. My motivation is I'm an animal in a body that needs to be used and regularly stressed in ways it can adapt to in order to remain closer to peak functionality than degraded, and I don't want to degrade. I had very bad degenerative spine issues in my 30s and my experience living in a less degraded body has been far better than living in a degraded body. I don't feel any need for other people to push me. I work out completely alone in my own garage or on the street. I comment about it here when it comes up as a topic but don't try to be a part of any other web communities devoted to fitness. I don't publicly post progress photos or stats. I keep logs but only as feedback for my own planning.
This isn't down to trying to avoid other people, either. This is largely down to convenience. When I had gym memberships in the past, sometimes I would go and sometimes I would not and quite often the thing keeping me from going was the simple friction of needing to leave the house and get in a car for 20 minutes. As it stands, I didn't have a car for a few years and still very rarely drive thanks to the continuing spinal stiffness in the wake of multiple lumbar fusions. There is quite a bit less friction involved in walking downstairs whenever I happen to have a spare 40 minutes in the day.
I say all of this understanding not everybody works in the same way. Some may need a hard schedule. Some may need a coach or social factor. Some may do better with strict separation of home as a place to relax and somewhere else as a place to push bodily function. Some may need their garage for cars. Many are not going to have thousands of dollars to blow on equipment but can easily afford a monthly subscription to use equipment shared with others.
I'm only intending to point out there are many ways to make this work and to push language on the web away from saying things are "absolutely crucial to motivate oneself" because they worked for you personally. It was absolutely crucial to you. Something entirely different was absolutely crucial to me. What is absolutely crucial to some randomly selected other person who is neither of us I will not claim to know. If this is something you care about, try everything. Find what works for you.
this article is from 2015, maybe people wised up. I remember I once joined a gym with a 3 month prepay and never went even once. After the 3 months were up they called me asking if I want to renew lol. Safe to say I never since payed for more than a month
A friend asked me what gym I’m going to now days, I was delighted to inform him it’s a globally available 24/7 gym and I never have to wait for equipment. It’s 2 square meters in “the park”. 120 bodyweight squats, lunges, and calf raises, 150 push ups and 200 sit ups, 3km run, and 10 minutes stretching. Challenging, requires zero thought or planning (other than wearing a warm top on cold days) and costs $0/month.
I’m happy for you, but this is kind of phrased a little overly smugly to me. As someone who lifts weights, it sounds like “I don’t go to the grocery, I just eat potatoes and eggs from my backyard farm”.
It’s certainly something you can do and get good results, but it’s also a limitation. If you want to build muscle or strength past a certain point it will be very inefficient not to use free weights. Maybe you don’t want to do that, and that’s ok. But it’s kind of weird to be smug about it
Smugness aside, it's still good advice because calisthenics is all that the average person needs to maintain a healthy level of personal fitness. For people to think that they need to have access to specialized equipment (and pay handsomely for the privilege) creates an artificial barrier that turns people off from exercising entirely and prevents them from meeting their basic fitness needs.
For those out there, if you don't have time or inclination to go to the gym, I guarantee you will feel better in your skin if you go from doing zero physical activity to doing any at all, even a little bit. A few minutes of stretching when you wake up in the morning followed by single-digit numbers of squats, pushups, and situps is a great start.
It's more relief than smugness. Gyms always seemed to let me down: onerous contracts, complex or buggy booking platforms/procedures, unhygienic, stuffy, rigid class start times and open hours. Gaining self-sufficiency made me incredibly happy/relieved.
The final straw was when I wanted to pause the membership the gym required "supporting documentation" (i.e. flight or hotel itinerary). I cringed so hard. When I cancelled they charged 2 weeks because that's just normal. Stripe and apple subscriptions let you finish your currently billing period when you cancel, but certainly don't charge you for the next 2 billing periods. I found it so backward. Charging people for what they're clearly not using is kinda sleazy IMO (I know the article sheds light on why gyms do that - that's how they make most their money!)
Also, at least half of the utility of exercise for me is mental (as opposed to physical). So clicking on poorly made apps and dealing with contracts was the opposite effect I was hoping to experience, meanwhile breathing fresh air in nature while working out is very mentally relaxing and pleasant.
Tl;dr I got bitten a bunch of times by super lame or unnecessarily onerous gym processes, hence why becoming self sufficient made me so happy.
No need to go half way: It IS sleazy. The gym utility should be mental: encouraging you to go. But it's the incentive again: the gym owner feels they must squeeze money from any patron they get - and that includes not encouraging them to come. Making the gym more like home and a welcoming place means fewer memberships can be sold. Bad incentives all around.
And so for me the answer has been to work out at home. Finding a routine that requires little equipment and doing THAT right.
Consider comparing to gyms that only offer classes. The gym might offer 10-20 time slots per day. Whereas self sufficiency enables infinitely many start times. Very useful under certain circumstances. Examples: finish work very late (when no classes are scheduled), intend to train but shortly before class recognise a need for more of a warm up (I've heard this happens with experienced gym goers, not just newbie folks like myself). With a class you can't always turn up late and you almost certainly can't delay its start time. But with self sufficient training, you can start late if your body requires more warming up; it can start any time you want it to.
Yeah. I am looking forward to going back to the gym but I don’t stop reminding my parents that there’s nothing like iron because it’s hard to find anything as heavy and compact.
It’s not the gym what I miss, but the iron barbell
Just like me. Everything about a gym is opposite to what I want. It really is a road block. I have a small home gym, playing my own music, I can make the annoying sounds that I like while lifting, I can get a balanced fullbody workout, it saves a lot of money and also time. When I walk out of my door, there are literally three gyms within a 200 meter radius, but I prefer working out in my home gym.
These are nowhere near a replacement for weights or machines. I notice you didn't even mention doing pull-ups, the only body-weight exercise with enough resistance for you to actually build muscle from.
Can you point me to a bodyweight exercise that can sub in for 450lb deadlifts for sets of 6? How about for 250lbs bench for sets of 6? While you can build good general health and endurance i n 2 square meters in "the park," you by nature of the exercises are putting a (very) low ceiling on potential muscle mass, which is very important not just for looks but also for general metabolic health (muscles act as a glucose sink, blunting the effects of blood-sugar spikes) as well as preventing frailty/immobility in old age.
Doing bodyweight exercise instead of bench or machines for chest is pretty doable due to the huge number of push up variations. One Arm Push Ups and Planche Push Ups can create strength in even the best athletes with enough reps.
Heavy deadlifts are much harder to replace with bodyweight exercises. Squats can be subbed out for pistol squats but I haven't found a great way to load hip hinge pattern.
I'm curious if anyone here knows of a bodyweight exercise that is a good replacement for heavy deadlift.
450 lb deadlifts and 250 lb bench press seems like a lot though. Surely general metabolic health and long health span doesn’t require that kind of weight, does it? I’m thinking with a lot of weight on the bar, there’s probably some point where the chance of injury outweighs the potential long term benefits.
It's decent but nothing crazy. I think most men could achieve it within 4-6 years. Generally, you can build muscle until age 40 without TRT at which point sarcopenia sets in and you lose on average 10% of muscle mass per decade. Thus it's better to have a reserve. When you look at causes of death for old people, there is case after case of falling -> broken hip -> catch something and die in the hospital. Having a good base of muscle makes this significantly less likely.
WRT to injuries: in terms of physical activity, lifting has some of the lowest injury rates, leaps and bounds lower than something like basketball or sprinting. While they are possible, joints adapt to loads over time and having a strong back + spine makes it a lot less likely to pull something in daily life. With intelligent load management (sleeping + eating well, not putting in more volume than you can recover from, listening to your body) injuries are extremely infrequent and generally minor---I have not had a serious injury in the 5 or so years I have been lifting.
I think lifting is too-often overlooked in health discussions, and, given how important avoiding metabolic conditions and immobility is for general health and happiness, I would argue it's just as important as cardio as a physical activity.
Well, it certainly depends on a person. If someone is a big guy he might need that much weight to even break a sweat, exercising with 120 lbs bar would do nothing for them.
Pull-ups. All the pull-up bars have been removed from public spaces. They all used to have long rows of them from the 50s and 60s, some with iron gymnastics rings, sit-up anchors, parallel bars, etc.
Have you been doing this for a long time consistently? Have you noticed your shoulders rolling forward? You do a lot of chest work but 0 back work.
I'm not big into bodyweight stuff, but I did manage to cause myself problems in my early lifting days when I used to half-ass rows and take bench super seriously.
Imbalance is something that worries me. I figure it's better to do a workout that's imbalanced than to come up with a theoretically perfect workout that requires a gym that I hate going to or, worse, doing no structured exercise (which is what I did for periods in the past). If you have suggestions to better balance the workout, I'd love to hear them and will integrate changes immediately.
Pulling movements in general are pretty hard to do with just calisthenics. Anywhere in that big park, is there a nice sturdy pole or post? If so, you can get an elastic band set, usually very inexpensive and portable, and use that to do rows (and face pulls, if you want).
I would also try to incorporate pull-ups (some parks have pull up bars, or you can install one at home) to work your lats. This might be tricky if you’re not at the point where you can do a body weight pull-up yet. If that’s the case, you can probably figure out how to do a lat pull down with elastic bands and the right kind of rigid surface.
You can use your feet to stabilize the bands to do curls (biceps, some forearms) and shrugs (traps) to round out most “pulling” movements. Also you can isolate your triceps and side delts with bands. And do “harder” ab exercises than just sit-ups. They’re very versatile, like a much less expensive cable system.
I'll incorporate pull ups as of today on every day except where the bar is taken, as that would negate one of the joys of this particular workout: that it can be done absolutely any time without planning/thinking/waiting.
Will research bands and band exercises (on youtube?) and almost certainly buy some and incorporate a few. Very much like the idea of some sort of 'row' as well as shrugs for traps. Forearms seems to already get smashed during pushups (especially the 'fingers out' and 'narrow grip' push ups [1]).
> a gym customer needs quite a bit more space compared to the retail customers in the rest of the high street
You can tell this also when you look through a shop window, say of a woman’s clothing shop. The more free space (wider aisles, fewer goods on display) the higher the prices since the sales of fewer items have to cover the rent. Conversely it’s why dollar stores tend to have narrow, jammed aisles.
Agree with the general economics, but this caught my eye:
> a gym customer needs quite a bit more space compared to the retail customers in the rest of the high street
Where I live, the two gyms nearest to me are not on a high street - they are effectively in residential areas, which I believe has lower rents. The gyms that are on the high street are 'super gyms' that are significantly more expensive.
I have seen “high street” gyms use office space and even basement space. While being a short minute walk from the high street. My current gym is upstairs. Upstairs entry is not something most shops want (unless you are niche maybe like a wedding shop). There are tricks to get lower rent.
Probably good to have the gyms closer to where people live as well. Retail stores benefit from the incidental visits of people who are already there. But no one is going to just pop in to the gym while buying clothes.
I love articles like this that explain business models that on the surface don’t seem to make sense. I’d like to see a similar analysis of how porn survives as a profitable business when there is an absolutely unlimited supply on the web for free. During the early days of the web I understand but how they make money now is inscrutable.
Porn markets have addictive dynamics. Much like alcohol, drugs, betting, freemium gaming. 90% of the people can just have their fun on the cheap end. But the 10% that are prone to addiction will pour their life savings into it.
I haven't read the article but the move to squeezy ketchup bottles was because parents didn't like kids messing with the glass bottles, and kids were the ones who would dump a load of unused ketchup on their plates meaning parents would buy more.
It's because glass bottles were more expensive. It took decades to develop a plastic bottle that was sufficiently gas impermeable for long shelf life unlike restaurant plastic bottles that are refilled frequently enough to not matter.
The squeezy bottles are annoying because they are opaque and I'm sure a ton of wasted mustard, ketchup etc are being thrown in the trash compared to glass. The Dutch have the flessenlikker but most Americans don't.
At my grocery store all the squeezy ketchup bottles are transparent.
Even Heinz has both a bright red bottle and transparent versions. Shops like Whole Foods don't sell the bright red version though, only the transparent version. Clearly they are marked at different customers, and there must be some demographics that prefer the bright red.
The best thing I ever did was invest in some quality gym equipment at home. I have a power rack, tons of weights, bars, etc. treadmill, TVs, speakers, whatever. Never going back to a gym again.
A whole power rack would indeed be neat but also very excessive unless you have the space. A pair of dumbbells under the sofa will take you a long way. Running on a treadmill, no thanks, just go outdoors.
I'm pretty introverted but even I find that working out with the "regulars" I know at the gym helps a lot with motivation. If I go at a time when they aren't there, it's definitely less fun. I've had home fitness equipment but never consistently used it.
I agree except for some specialized equipment I wanted to use for PT on my arm. Apart from that I do better at home.
But I think for some people it’s possible that the payment itself acts as a spur to exercise (I’m paying for it so I’d better use it). Of course the gym owners are counting on this not being true!
Also I just want general fitness, health, and ability to do specific things I want (bike/swim/kayak/backpack/ski), which means bodyweight exercising (including TRX) and hand weights are 95% of what I need -- most of the gym equipment is great but unnecessary to me (YMMV)
+1 total quality of life improvement, I (try to) use mine everyday. If you hunt for deals on FB marketplace you can generally get the basics for <2k. The biggest pain point is space.
I'm kinda into flywheels right now. Not too hard to DIY, basically unlimited resistance, very low space, and if you can figure out how to do a vertical and horizontal pull - you can get a full body workout in pretty efficiently.
And how can you know you're doing progressive overload with them? With weights it's easy to tell you're going up in numbers, how can you quantify gains with flywheels?
I went for my usual early morning run on January 1st and was pleased to see quite a few visibly out of shape people puffing their way around the lake. (Usually, there are zero of them.)
Today, all of 5 days later, I went for another run on the same course at the same time, and things are back to normal: not a single one. Looks like Sweaty January didn't last even a week for them, and this despite running not even costing anything.
> was pleased to see quite a few visibly out of shape people puffing their way around the lake
I'm never pleased to see these people when out walking as they almost invariably have very poor running form and, if they persist, will do damage to themselves.
Jogging is a really poor way of 'getting back into shape' if you're not already in shape, and didn't build up good running technique in your teenage or early adult years.
There’s also tricks like requiring certified letters to cancel the membership. One I went to required two. You also paid a fee upfront that was like being there for half a year.
It’s bizarre that consumers collectively agree to these terms. If I started a business that was this anti-customer, I would assume there would be zero customers willing to take that deal.
Moreover, why hasn’t anyone introduced a brand that doesn’t have all these awful features?
Years ago I called NYT to cancel my subscription. After I repeated for the third or fourth time "I just want to cancel please" the representative finally relented but not before insulting me based on some assumption he formed based on my name.
I think a significant number of people at least enter into the agreement thinking it's a feature. Roughly:
- Going to the gym sucks, and I don't want to go
- I should force myself to go to the gym anyway
- Gyms are expensive, and hard to cancel
- The pain and shame of canceling, combined with ongoing cost, will be a motivator for me to actually go to the gym
In short, I think a lot of people erroneously believe that locking themselves into the contract will motivate them. Instead, they end up still not going and also paying because of the contract.
I agree with rebeccaskinner: People think that way in their heart of hearts, but it's a bit shamey to admit that they see themselves as so weak, so nobody adnmits it openly.
(But, hey, as the old Swedish saying goes: "Efter sig själv dömer man andra" -- ~"Your judgement of others is based on using yourself as a measure", so whatever you ascribe to others is a reflection of yourself. Freud may have invented the label "Projection", but Swedish folk wisdom had him beat to the concept by Idunno how many centuries.)
I think that most people simply don't read contracts before signing them. They go by what the sales pitch says, and sales pitches are almost never honest and complete.
> why hasn’t anyone introduced a brand that doesn’t have all these awful features?
There are, at least in my part of the country, a lot of gyms that don't behave this way -- but you have to actually read the contract to know if that's the sort of gym you're in.
Usually what I understood from people was - they just didn’t read the contract.
Contract was for a year and then after a year you can cancel each month or at the end of a year period.
But people want to quit after 3 months or 6 months and then they post on socials how they got scammed.
In my life I had now 3 or 4 contracts and I trained usually like 3 or 4 years at each. Never had any issues canceling, just go to front desk make last payment, cancel use last month and done.
There are a few gyms that let you cancel online. If you know of any other chains that require certified mail/hard to cancel requirements let me know. I recently had to add a signature feature to my app for Retro Fitness!
# Require certified mail (100% sure on these)
- LA Fitness
- Planet Fitness
- Gold's Gym
- Retro Fitness
# Let you cancel online / do not require in person or certified mail (From memory based on my research)
I think it's because the scammy techniques allow lower apparent princes. People who shop by price will end up at the scammy gym. Maybe people are sensitive to price when it comes to gyms, and/or the true cost of a gym membership is too high for almost anyone.
People who don't want to admit the cost is too high are perfect targets because they also don't want to admit they will want to cancel in the future. I, uh, am talking about a friend of mine, of course.
Popularity is an anti feature at the gym. Working adults have limited windows to workout and so once a gym gets affordable like 24hr fitness where seasonal sales at Costco make it VERY cheap it becomes a gym you might not actually want to work out in.
Then you have the whole gym owner archetype which I won’t dive into but IMO exasperates the issue.
Mega-gyms are pretty terrible. I've never been to a 24 Hour Fitness, LA Fitness, or Gold's Gym that wasn't a sea of equipment hoggers, broken machines, random dirty towels, occupied lockers, and screens with CNN or daytime TV on. What's even more strange is how willing people are to pay hundreds or thousands of dollars for an Equinox membership. The rationale is that paying that much upfront keeps you motivated to make your payment worthwhile, but both people I know who've made this mistake ended up going only a few times before giving up.
Smaller neighorhood gyms are so much better, let you cancel any time, and don't make you talk to a sales-bro when signing up.
> I've never been to a 24 Hour Fitness, LA Fitness, or Gold's Gym that wasn't a sea of equipment hoggers, broken machines, random dirty towels, occupied lockers, and screens with CNN or daytime TV on.
I was a member of Gold’s Gym in Japan for more than a decade and worked out at many different branches, and other than occasional equipment hoggers none of that applied. The gyms were all clean and well maintained. I also used a Gold’s Gym for a while in Southern California, and it was fine, too. When it came time for me to cancel my memberships, there was no hassle whatsoever.
Another mega gym I used a few times in Southern California was pretty awful, though. I still remember the dirt under all of the machines and the caked dried sweat covering the handles of the ellipticals.
> Another mega gym I used a few times in Southern California was pretty awful, though. I still remember the dirt under all of the machines and the caked dried sweat covering the handles of the ellipticals.
That must be the 24 Hour Fitness on Ocean Park Blvd in Santa Monica.
Yeah, that's probably the unsaid motivation. I just haven't seen it actually turn out that way with the small sample size I've people I've known who signed up for Equinox.
The other thing about Equinox, and expensive gyms in general, is that a gym's price and amount of equipment doesn't closely correlate with fitness success. You can't outrun a poor diet, genetics explains the vast majority of a person's physique even if they get their body fat down to <13%, and only maybe 6 different exercises will work out all the major muscle groups. Setting aside the dirtiness or crowdedness of certain gyms, every extra dollar you spend at the gym is a diminishing return. As a regular guy, I simply can't justify paying that much for Equinox no matter how hot and motivated those gym goers will be because I already have the motivation to work out twice a weak at a cheap ass (yet clean and uncrowded) gym that's closer to me anyway.
I used the equinox next door to the office for a while because it was next door to the office (and membership was subsidized). It seemed that the customer base was fit people between 30 and 45. Being outside that demographic meant I didn’t have to interact with the other customers, which to me was a feature.
Probably because gym density isn't super high in some areas, so consumers may not have a ton of choices. And opening a gym that can compete with a big gym chain is not as easy as opening a sandwich shop to compete with subway.
Because vanishingly few people want to pay the true per-visit costs of a gym. Most of them would rather be lured in by a low price and be subsidized by the 'suckers' locked into paying for a year.
This works for for people who live somewhere and go to the gym constantly. But God forbid you travel. I live in Europe, and in my town gym does not work in the way described in article. But when I went to the USA for two months, I had to sign a yearly contract with a trial and cancel it before the end of the trial.
Because you are ready to purchase and presumably make your life better? It's not like you're going to read the contract, see that the only way out is to send a certified letter or cancel in person, and think, "Nah, I'm going to take my business down the street."
They do not. The major gyms somehow have basically blocked chargebacks from most major issuers and additionally even cancelling your card for a new one won’t help.
I got into a giant fight with Lifetime Fitness and Amex over this. Amex 100% took the gyms side and allowed them to bill me even after I told them I refused any additional charges.
The chargeback system is consumer friendly until there is actual real money on the table. If you are a giant business you can block many chargebacks as matter of course. Your issuing bank will tell you to take it up in civil court while issuing you a bill.
As I looked into this further I realized chargebacks other than outright theft and fraud are basically done as a courtesy until your account is no longer worth it to the issuer.
I refuse to purchase a Planet Fitness membership because of this. Despite PF being both closer and cheaper, I will not play their BS cancellation games with my bank account.
That worked - once I managed to catch them in the office.
It took more than one try to catch them during office hours. The problem of course is that their office hours numbered just 12 hours a week, and smack in the middle of the workday! 10:30 - 1:30, M-Th
One I went to required you quit in person, which I had experienced before, but then the guy running it asked if we could talk about why I was quitting, since it was his first day taking over and he didn't want to lose anyone the first day. I was there for 3 hours talking to him and his buddy that got him into fitness. I ended up agreeing to 3 month free and a personal training session with him just to get out of there. I did the training session, it was very bad, and then went back again later to quit when he wasn't there.
I had a membership in NYC. When I moved to Florida, I forgot to cancel before I left. So I called them up to cancel, and they said I had to be there in person.
You'd think that telling them that I had moved 20 hours away would have made them budge, but nope. I had multiple phone conversations with them before sending a legal threat, which finally prompted them to "make an exception for me." Ridiculous.
I never got around to sending the letter that LA Fitness wants you to send by certified mail. I spent around 6 months not mailing the letter, got to be my first customer.
About twenty years ago I had a gym structure their yearly fee as a credit agreement, where I paid the year upfront, and then was paying off an interest free loan to them every month as my dues.
This author seems to conflate operational costs with "fixed costs", and doesn't touch on what the actual fixed costs of the business are, which would have been interesring.
Any gym owners can chime in? My local gym seemed pretty normal this January so far (but I am in Australia where many people book their holidays during forced shutdown periods).
Also the gym seems to have the same pricing whenever except sometimes there is “no joining fee” which is a weird thing to me but hey?
My gym is independent.
A famous world brand of gym I used to belong to seemed to make their money by making it very hard to leave (contract, and when the contract runs out hard to get through to the right person, and combined with uncancelable direct debits in Australia) it was a pain to quit. It that might be the DD that made me just close the bank account.
Alan Thrall (owner of Untamed Strength in Sacramento) has discussed this a few times (most recently in this video[0]), but basically independent gyms don't really see this effect. In fact January can still be a pretty slow month for independent gyms as members over spend during the holidays (and cancel memberships) or don't want to go out in the cold weather.
Personally as a member of an independent gym for a few years now, I have also not seen an increase in activity at the beginning of the year. Most of the members tend to be pretty consistent and I've been now 5 days this new year at different peak times and seen only one new face. Good independent gyms are very expensive to run.
I go to an independent gym, it's definitely more crowded in January but pretty much back to normal by mid-late February. If history repeats, they will close to new memberships sometime in the next few weeks until the crowds abate.
A lot of new year resolvers won't be so keen on training untamed and will find their way to the nearest Planet Fitness. Squat racks can be pretty intimidating, and learning how to use them takes some guidance.
A personal trainer I had at a very low rate (about $35/month in 2015) Manhattan gym confided in me that the place had something like 10X more active memberships than they could ever fit into the gym, even if everyone came at a uniform time distribution once every other day. They knew empirically that they could basically get away with overselling a service (adequate time and space to use the facility) than they could actually provide, because as the article says, most people just come 3 or4 times and then give up, but they've already signed up for a yearly rate.
Depending on which Aussie state you are in, there are consumer protections which allow you to exit these contracts with a simple email. At least this is was the case for me in WA.
NSW here, I quit mine a few months back by email after being a member for 5 years. The reason being they increased the monthly fee from $65 in 2020 to $100 in 2023.
I'm surprised no one has compared Peloton. And, also surprised that Peloton can get away with charging ~$50/mo. But, then again, that's not so far off. I see activity on the Peloton tapering off a bit after the first few months of usage, and that in person colleague effect seems powerful. It isn't the same when you are seeing random people on the leaderboards.
Just got into Zwift, after getting a Wahoo Kickr for my road bike.
This service is 100% amazing, highly addictive - and very affordable. Haven't even done a race yet, structured ERG mode workouts and hill climbs are so darned enjoyable.
Have my squat rack metres away; home gyms are amazing.
And with the weekly emails and monthly events, they seem to actually want you to use the service, unlike the stereotypical gym model. Maybe because an Apple subscription is so much easier to cancel?
I am fairly athletic and do cardio and strength exercises since I was in a school (60+ now). I do it without gym though For cardio I bike, hike, swim in open water etc. For strength I do some bodyweight stuff that does not take up much time at all. I also have rowing machine and treadmill that I use in winter time. Thought of visiting gym had never even occurred to me.
Not gonna lie, I was utterly spoiled by the perfect atmosphere in my community college gym. I used it as much as possible as a registered student. Unfortunately, it's pretty far from my home, so after graduation it wasn't realistic that I should commute there on a weekly basis, as a community-based member instead of active student.
So this all transpired right around the pandemic lockdowns. I went up to the nearest gym I could find, really the only gym I could realistically commute to, and investigated a membership. The culture there was rather repulsive, honestly; the staff who I interacted with, they were uncool people IMHO, just nobody I'd want to associate with in normal life.
I asked several pointed questions about the membership structure and payments, and even their method for admission left something to be desired. Their mobile app was mandatory; you couldn't show a wallet ID card to get in. At the time, my only mobile device was a WiFi-only tablet, so before I could work out at all, I'd have to come in the door, get my tablet opened up and connected to their WiFi, then access their stupid app so they could let me in the gates.
Another real deal-breaker was when I found out that they really didn't have personal trainers available to me. As a sedentary novice, and someone at-risk for injury, I really needed professional advice and guidance on a regular basis, and they just couldn't meet me where I'm at. Basically the bottom line was that I'd be all on my own, with whatever equipment was available. So I just completely gave up on commercial gym usage.
That being said, my own apartment community has a modest gym available, and it's included in my rent, so I'm actually losing money by not taking advantage of this amenity. No personal trainer, but the machines are easy to use, and could really be helpful if I put in the commitment.
When I last lived in an apartment, I saw people bringing in their own trainers to the complex's gym. There's also services like Copilot that let you work with coaches through video chat.
That's what killed TechShop. They had a gym pricing model - pay by the month and use all the tool time you want. They thought that people in Silicon Valley would buy a membership and rarely show up. No. It was people who really needed to make stuff and who showed up every day. There were people who spent eight hours a day on a milling machine, every day.
I've had two past experiences with joining gyms. The first time, I canceled before even visiting, thanks to a state law allowing no-questions-asked cancellations within a certain period. The second time, I didn't proceed with signing up due to high-pressure sales tactics and an uncomfortable environment that included shaming and mocking. These experiences left a bitter taste.
However, since changing jobs, I've been working out at my workplace gym. It's a much better environment with friendly trainers, no pressure sales, no shaming, and no long-term contracts. I'm much happier and find myself working out more frequently than ever before.
Yeah the signup can be rough. I remember they insist on offering you a “free session” with a trainer—it’s a trap, one must adamantly decline it, insist on just wanting a basic subscription. They’ll want to ask you lots of questions to “try to understand your goals”, one must insist on just a basic subscription.
It’s quite obnoxious :P but, that’s the only time one interacts with sales staff or even trainers. After that it’s pretty smooth sailing.
The gym I go to (part of a national chain where I live) also do it, but it sounds well meant. There's only one subscription anyway (a yearly one) and no extra (unless you want to buy a towel or something).
In my experiences with two major gyms, rather than local ones, I was met with extremely aggressive upselling. I was looking for a simple gym subscription, but was bombarded with pitches for additional services like special programs and weight loss plans, despite repeatedly stating that I only wanted gym access.
What's more, on at least one occasion, I visited with a day pass trial, only to be told that trying the gym out didn't make sense and that I should just sign up immediately. This kind of pressure, especially when I was there to test the facilities, felt quite deceptive and left a negative impression.
I use Healthways. I pay $50 a month and I can go to almost any gym. One of the gyms that I used to go to all the time before I moved stopped excepting Healthways when they had a reorganization during the pandemic. My friend who works there thinks it's because it didn't make economic sense since too many of their members were using Healthways. Those people now have to spend $150 a month to go to that gym. And they may continue to pay for Healthways as well.
I have not spent much time in gyms, the environment is hostile to me. Music I don't like, TVs showing uninteresting things. When I am there I want to escape.
Finally I must add, all the friends (more like acquaintances) you make at the gym are absolutely crucial to motivate oneself and also just have a positive social interaction. I guess that perk of the gym membership is not even quantifiable.
I feel really thankful and privileged to have gyms around now, I will never take them for granted going forward.