How Gyms Make Money (2015)
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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.
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.
4-5am? $2. 5-6pm? $10!
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.
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'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.
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.
If you don't believe me, try plugging the drain on just a 5 minute shower to see how much it fills up, then extrapolate...
(The shower crosses into more water generally somewhere between 10 and 20 minutes depending on the shower flow and desired bath depth...)
Are you aware that clean water is a finite resource that we're almost certain to run out of? [1] does that not bother you all?
Even mighty British Columbia with all the rivers, lakes, mountains and snowfall is under drought conditions, right now in winter!
https://www.theworldcounts.com/challenges/planet-earth/state...
> Are you aware that clean water is a finite resource that we're almost certain to run out of? [1] does that not bother you all? https://www.theworldcounts.com/challenges/planet-earth/state...
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.
Much like plastic straws.
It kinda is, when you're drawing it from a spring that will lead to the ocean one way or the other.
Maybe they were (implicitly) talking about shaving their body hair? I dunno - confusing.
I was 27, about twice the age I was when I finished 8th grade.
Doing it at 430am is their second favorite customer other than someone that doesn't come at all.
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.
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 :)
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.
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.
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.
> 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'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.
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.
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
Gyms are not forbidden if it makes sense?
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
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
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!
Plenty of examples of elite bodybuilders training with them.
Power lifters, however, tend to focus on the compound movements and therefore probably need less equipment.
That’s an overly broad generalization. If you look up pictures of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s home gym, it’s mostly machines.
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.
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.
[1] Ignorant meant painful.
That's a pretty wild claim to include without a source...
I googled it and found a source that said 12% of signups in January compared to average 8% the rest of the year which sounds a lot more realistic. [1]
[1] https://www.ihrsa.org/improve-your-club/how-to-keep-resoluti...
This could reasonably be Chinese-whispered to become that 75% statistic.
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
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.
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.
Damn. You pretty much just described civilization right there.
This one doesn't count. Can't have a class without a fixed start time.
And so for me the answer has been to work out at home. Finding a routine that requires little equipment and doing THAT right.
It’s not the gym what I miss, but the iron barbell
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.
The exact workout is from 19m28s - 37:22 in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0WOTplwNlw&t=19m28s (I do the whole thing twice, then 3km run then stretch)
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.
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]).
Will check out banded ab exercises too.
Thanks for the advice.
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.
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
Only they didn’t run the air con so it would be roasting in summer.
Wow.
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.
Surprisingly a lot of engineering went into those squeezy tops
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?
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)
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.
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.
Moreover, why hasn’t anyone introduced a brand that doesn’t have all these awful features?
> 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.
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.
Then you have the whole gym owner archetype which I won’t dive into but IMO exasperates the issue.
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.
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 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.
They have a sense of Quality that almost no other demographic does.
That must be the 24 Hour Fitness on Ocean Park Blvd in Santa Monica.
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.
- 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
(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.)
Why would they when our national paper of record adopts similar tactics?
https://social.kernel.org/notice/AWSTn6aOpeEvSKZ7Wy
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.
Sorry to blunt, but if you think that's bizarre...I don't think you understand human behavior very well.
# 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)
- Orange Theory Fitness
- Blink Fitness
- Equinox
- 24 hour fitness
(edit: formatting, clarification)
I guess it could take a lot of legwork to figure out what individual franchises allow.
https://memberservices20.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/36004...
At least washing our gym clothes got easier…
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.
Gym would not respond to emails asking for cancellation form, nor pick up the phone during office hours.
Then stood by their cancellation policy of 30 days despite the weeks of messages left. 30 days from time of signing the form.
Shady business.
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.
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
https://www.npr.org/2023/03/23/1165527249/ftc-rule-charges-c...
https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2023/03/...
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.
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.
January in Australia is Summer
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?
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.
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.
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).
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.
Every single month your membership expires, and you have to bring your card to re-subscribe.
This is great for consumers (it was actually frustrating for me as gym person), but seems like a bad business decision.