Sports and fitness pages around the world deal with similar questions on an almost weekly basis. The most astounding thing is that most people have done nothing with their memberships for decades, but it takes a virus to get their backsides into gear.
In fairness, it’s not just a virus. It is a pandemic, and as REM prophesied many years ago, it’s the end of the world as we know it. It’s the end of the world as we know it. It’s the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine.
Back in the early 1990s, when I signed my very first gym contract at the Bedfordview Health & Racquet Club, a diehard old Lebanese man with hairy biceps said wryly: “Don’t waste your money now like everyone else. You know, gyms make their money from the people who don’t go to the gym, not from people like me who come and use their stuff every day.”
Most people will go through phases of three months, a year, maybe two, and then allow the membership card or tag to gather dust while the debit orders come off like clockwork.
He was right. As the proud author of this active health and fitness column, I exercise daily, and I have for years. But before that, I wasted two-year contracts at Health & Racquet and Virgin Active, three-year contracts at Planet Fitness, a one-year contract with Fitness First in Shepherd’s Bush in London, another year wasted at the Streatham Leisure Centre’s gym in the dreary southwest of London and three visits in three years at the Rhodes University gym, which has subsequently been turned into the “Rhodes University Health Suite”. Perhaps with that name I would have visited it more often.
Most people reading this have done the same. Most people will go through phases of three months, a year, maybe two, and then allow the membership card or tag to gather dust while the debit orders come off like clockwork.
Blame it on the analogue era, but not once was there a clamour to cancel contracts because training at home was good enough. It always was. Not once was there talk of gyms serving no purpose for most people. But gyms have been disrupted by technology, haven’t they? They certainly have. Fitness Ally and MyFitnessPal have demonstrated — very successfully — that you don’t need a big building with a glass façade to enjoy the benefits of exercise.
But nothing has changed. If that Lebanese man with the hairy biceps, who’d probably be 80 today, were asked, he would say: “The apps make their money out of the people who don’t use them.”
The only thing that will make you, or anyone else exercise, is if you want to. How you do it depends on the level of convenience or social interaction you desire.
That technology has evolved to bring virtual trainers into the living room, apps into smartwatches and mirrors on your wall that watch you, makes no difference. The only thing that will make you, or anyone else exercise, is if you want to. How you do it depends on the level of convenience or social interaction you desire.
Many trainers have shifted to online classes, with some offering a hybrid service of in-person and digital sessions. There certainly appears to be an uptick of questions on Facebook about where to find small, community facilities or trainers that travel, with equipment, to people’s homes.
Those who require large weights will almost certainly keep going to the gym, as will those who require other specialised, and expensive, equipment. Those who require friends and stares, and Spandex glares, will also renew their contracts.
Some small gyms have died, while others have shifted to a digital model. The days of ultra-large facilities — with more equipment and services than you could ever use — popping up in every suburb are probably numbered, but gyms will always have a role to play in society, even if they look different.
As the pandemic has dragged on, people went from talking about remote working to discussing hybrid working. Working out at home will likely become like working from home: some days remote, some days in the facility.
Our advice on your contract is simple. Whatever you do, and whichever platform you use, try to prove the old Lebanese man wrong. Your future self will thank you.
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