I was always very active through college (played lotsa sports through HS, then D3 lax, which was fun), but got ‘relaxed’ when the boys were young and got very involved in their sports, coaching, car pooling, etc. At age 40, I was sick and tired of being a load, so I went back to the gym and have for the last 13+ years…I would say the statistic is closer to 99%+ of people just doing their own thing…even the meatheads in my gym are pretty nice guys…I find the majority of people are like me, middle aged, just trying to stave off the heart attack and feel good about moving, my experience has been at four or five gyms in two upstate NY towns over the last 13+ years is people pop in their headphones and just do their own thing…
I totally agree with the people who say find something you like as you are far more likely to stick to it…Mrs. BLTC hates gyms, so she does her own thing walking and at home and cannot for the life of her understand why I like it…I just do…I also like wine and really hot peppers, so many it’s an endorphin thing…
I belonged to a gym that was $10.99/month; basic gym - only weights & cardio machines, no classes. Other gyms have classes, pools, massages, juice bars, tanning booths, towel service, fancy wooden locker rooms, etc, etc, etc. I know of a gym like that; they wanted $129/month. At that price they better work out for me, they don’t & needless to say, I didn’t join.
In other words, look around & make sure it’s what you want before joining; if you’re in a major metropolitan area chances are there’s another one within a couple of miles.
From your post, it doesn’t sound like a gym is for you. Gyms make the bulk of their money from people who sign up for vague ‘fitness’ reasons and never show up.
I’d recommend doing something else active that you might enjoy and if you find yourself enjoying getting fit, maybe pursue a membership then.
I’ve had a gym membership at various places for something like 20 years, so I love them, but they’re not for everyone or even most people, frankly.
Warning:
I just ran into a situation with a gym, be careful:
Wife and daughter went to one of the large gym chains to sign up for memberships, which they did. While talking to person the gym pitched a “personal trainer” (expensive) which my wife declined.
Months later I noticed large charges on credit card, the gym had signed us up for the personal trainer. I went down there and they produced a document that was clearly fraudulent (wife’s signature at weird angle and on top of other hand writing, multiple other inconsistencies etc.). Visa reviewed documents and reversed all of the charges that were within the 90 day window but some were outside so I lost some money.
Anyway, google “gym personal trainer class action lawsuit” and you will read stories that match mine exactly (as well as other variations that ultimately end up putting thousands of dollars in gym pockets fraudulently).
Additional note:
I did some research and read from people that worked at this gym chain as managers and at HQ and apparently the fraudulent behavior is common and accepted as long as the money keeps flowing, and that they have a large team of lawyers that are part of keeping the scam operating.
The gym I used to manage would sell a package of personal training sessions with their memberships, which only added a nominal amount to the bi-weekly payments. Unless they cancelled and had used those sessions - then the total became due at the point of cancelling. It always sucked to have someone cancelling because they lost their job or something and had to tell them they owed over $600 in personal training fees (especially because those sessions were usually just walking them through a specific set of machines).
