Social Workout

Fitness Moolah

The Real Deal on New Year's Gym Deals

Tis the season for gym deals. The New York Times reports that Crunch has 50% off their initiation fee, and New York Sports Club has $0 initiation and no monthly payments till February. But sadly, the Times doesn't report much more than that. Probably because most gyms purposefully make it difficult to comparison shop. Most don't publish membership prices on their websites, and they're even cagey over the phone. You have to set up appointments with "membership coordinators," go on club tours, and only then will they show you little pieces of paper with fees printed on them, which they then slash through, whispering that they have a special deal if you sign up right now. 

But that's just silly and intentionally opaque in a way that denies the power of the internet. You should know the deal, and collectively, we have all the information. Here's everything SW currently knows about New Year's gym prices...

Rants

Bally's Total Fitness and Why Fat America Hates Gyms

Breaking business news: Ernst & Young has agreed to pay $8.5 million to settle fraud charges brought against seven of its partners in connection with its audits of Bally's Total Fitness. Please recall that Bally's went bankrupt last year amid all kinds of accounting "irregularities." Who cares? Well, it allows me to make this point: If you run your "gym" company like a fast food restaurant or a cheap hotel chain, looking to grow fast and maximize cash flow, two things will happen: First, you're likely to attract people who cut corners hoping to get rich quick; and, second, you'll miss the bigger payoff, both financially and, um, spiritually. "Gyms" are community hubs. They're places where people sweat and steam together, and decompress. They dance and cry. The best clubs understand the intimacy of the situation, and embrace it. In Italy, I'm told, some new gyms have added lounges, and people linger for hours. Almost certainly, this is lucrative for the gym owners. Perhaps because these Italians live in the ruins of Rome's early gyms, they understand that it's not all about selling memberships for pennies, and hiring aggressive sales teams to browbeat desperate urbanites, who are likely to quit the gym several months later. It's no surprise that the fastest growing area of fitness is yoga, despite the fact that yoga studios have none of the amenities of your typical chain gym. Frankly, people will pay more and give up showering simply to work out in a place which feels good and has a sense of community. Sure, not all American gyms are lame, but it does sometimes seem the U.S. "health club" industry suffers from a massive lack of imagination; and so we end up with oversized, bankrupt gym companies, a national obesity epidemic, and a high percentage of smart people who "hate" the gym. I'm just saying.

Workout

Best. Run. Ever

last Thursday I was feeling down and cranky and I went to the gym all hopped up on caffeine...

And I ran 2 1/2 miles straight, which is the most I have ever run! I am so proud of myself. Still.

Workout

Yoga, Week Two

I love this class and I love the instructor! It's so mellow. I do feel like in a few weeks I will be ready to start taking regular yoga classes and not just virgin. I did a shoulder stand for the first time since May, though!

Workout

Chisel, Week Two

Totally not as bad this time! Grace came with me and it was fun. I still hate gliding discs though.

Workout

Boring Sunday Workout

I'm getting so addicted to classes that I don't know what to do with myself when I don't take one.

Today:

- Squats

- Pushups

- Sun salutes

- Various bicep/tricep/side body exercises w/ dumbbells

- Planks

- A few machines, most notably the leg press which worked my butt

- A bunch of hanging crunches

Workout

Pilates Monday

Pilates again this Monday, I like the instructor. She incorporates lots of ballet-derived moves. She worked us much harder than last week and my arms are sore today.

Ran for 15 minutes before class.

Workout

Chisel killed me

I took my first Chisel class on Friday and it absoutely killed me dead. I was sore for three days afterwards, the next day I could barely walk up the stairs. Which showed me Chisel is doing something good to me.

I also ran a mile.

Workout

Pilates

Today I took a pretty low-key pilates class, which was just my speed- e.g. it didn't kill me like last week's chisel did. The instructor was a total doll and kept telling us all how awesome we were doing, although, as usual, I was clumsy. Then I had to rush off to go meet with students.