Deciding to Join the Club

You may feel overwhelmed when you walk in a health club, but don’t let feelings of anxiety stop you from signing up. Within a few sessions, your terror of the machines will seem unwarranted, and the club starts to seem as familiar as your own neighborhood. Here are a few reasons to become a health club member:

• Equipment choices: At a health club, you may have dozens of machines for each muscle group including newfangled contraptions that haven’t yet reached the consumer market or are too expensive or too large for home use.
• Advice: A gym that is invested in you has staff members walking around who can remind you how to do the perfect back extension or how to adjust the calf machine.
• Safety: Weight training isn’t inherently dangerous, but if you do happen to get stuck underneath a 100-pound barbell, at least you have people around to rescue you. You also have plenty of spotters to choose from.
• Motivation: After you’re inside a health club, you eliminate all your excuses not to exercise. Besides, the atmosphere of a club may make you want to work out. You see people of all shapes and sizes pumping and pushing and pulling, and you can’t help but be inspired to do the same.
• Cost: A typical yearly health club membership costs between $250 and $2,000, depending on where you live and what type of facilities the club offers. Home weight equipment may cost you less over a period of years, but unless you’re a Silicon Valley multimillionaire, you probably can’t afford to update your equipment as often as health clubs replace their contraptions. In order to stay competitive, many gyms turn over at least some of their equipment every year, if not more often.
• Relaxation: Ironically, a health club may be just the remedy for busy people who say that they don’t have time to go to one. At the gym, you’re free from stress and distractions. The phone doesn’t ring. Your kids don’t beg you to watch A Shark’s Tale for the 127th time. Your boss can’t assign you a last-minute report.
• Other facilities: Weight training is only one component of fitness. At a gym, you have treadmills, stationary bikes, stairclimbers, and other elliptical trainers. You may also find a sauna, steam room, swimming pool, vending machine, and even a snack bar (eat the healthy food, of course).