Being January 1st I thought that it would be very important to remind people about how to join a gym. I was listening to some sports radio guy on ESPN this morning and he was telling people:

“If you are thinking about getting in shape, don’t. Don’t go and join a gym or get in shape it’s too much trouble. One of your friends probably convinced you it was a good iea and you don’t need to do that anyway. Keep doing what you are doing”

I was a little offended by the guy until he continued:

“My workouts that take 50 minutes always take 2 hours in January when so many people join a gym. Don’t bother getting in shpae, who wants to feel better about themselves, who wnat to get complements abouot how great they look, who want to look years younger, no just stay at home in front of the TV and eat fried food, someone has to to keep the economy going buying too much bad food.”

What a great rant. Anyway, last year I wrote a series of articles aboout what to look at when you are joining a gym. Here are the links to the articles:

Joining a Health Club – The how and why of joining a gym

Joining a Health Club – The Tour – The guys at the gym put on a little dog and pony whow and it is almost worthless unless you know your priorities and ask the right questions

Choosing a health Club – Distance from Home – Where would your gym be? Close to home? Close to work?

Health Club Staff – How to know what to look for in the staff at the gym itself. Your membership si paying for the staff you should get your moneys worth.

If you are going out in the next couple of days to join a gym I think that it will really help you make a better decision to read these articles.

Good luck with the gym shopping.

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Tags: bad food, fried food, gym, health club, joining a gym, new years resolutions, sports radio guy

Health Club tours are always well scripted events that are conducted by a salesman for only one or two people. When you are gong to go to tour the health club that you are interested in remember that touring one is not enough. Decide which one you really like best just by location and reputation and then tour a couple of others.

Why would you tour other gyms?

Well every gym you tour will have a salesperson pushing the points that are strongest at that particular gym; the size, the amount of equipment, the trainers. After you have gone on a few tours than you will be saving what you think is the best for last. At this point you are going to know a lot more about what would be important to you and you will be in a better place to not be sold by the pitch and instead be a bit more detached to what is important for your own needs in a health club.

So now on with the tours!

The look of the Health Club

Firstly do your fitness club tours at a time that you would normally work out, this will give you an idea of what the conditions are going to be when you workout yourself. When you start your health club tour the salesperson will start by telling you how great the gym is and how helpful and friendly the staff and other members are. Look around the gym and see what the equipment usage is like, is there any obvious waiting for equipment? Are you going to be intimidated by huge bodybuilders making too much noise? On the other hand does it deem to country club like for your tastes without a motivational feel?

Even though you may have worn workout clothes for your health club tour try to make sure that you do not use the equipment, the act of working out may distract you from your objectivity. While you are seeing the equipment take a look at the lighting, is the workout area bright enough. How much space is there between pieces of equipment? Are you going to be crowded in or is there to much room that makes the place look too empty?

Check out the layout of the entire fitness center, are there enough water fountains? Are you going to run into people while you are getting weights for the bench press? When you get to the changing room check out the showers, stalls and lockers and make sure everything is clean. You may be uncomfortable with the idea of showering with other people but over time you will likely find it useful to be able to have a workout, shower, and then continue on with your day.

Workout Equipment

When you tour the health clubs there are three kinds of equipment to look at.

Cardio Equipment – steppers, stationary bikes, treadmills, rowing machines. How are the usage of these machines, these are always very popular and if your are at the gym at busy time your will not want to wait between uses of the machines

Weight Machines – contraptions that you put weights on including nautilus and others. How well are these maintained? The worst thing for using these is if they are jerky when you are moving through your range of motion and you will not want to be using them which means they would be wasted equipment to you.

Weights, benches, racks – There are various ways to do your exercises but you have to sit or lean on something. Are there lineups for this equipment? How close and how many weight plates are around? Again you would not want to wait to use this equipment as the time between sets is an important factor as to whether you have a good workout or not.

Miscellaneous equipment- abs equipment, lower back. This equipment is usually shoved off to one side in the health club. You will want to be able to get to it as almost every workout you will want to either work on getting a six pack set of abs or strengthening your lower back. Is this equipment well covered or is it torn? Is there enough at a busy time or do you have to wait for this? It may not be too bad to wait for these pieces of equipment occasionally so it may not be a deal breaker for you.

One thing to really take a look at in your tour of the health club is the equipment and the apparent servicing of this equipment. Gym equipment is very tough looking and it may look to you like the equipment is very sturdy and does not need any work to keep it going. This is very wrong! Any reputable gym will have someone working for them part time to maintain the equipment, keeping everything greased, recovering the benches and seats and generally making sure that all of the health club equipment is in tip top shape.

Cardio equipment must be maintained as well. The cardio equipment in a gym has to take much more abuse than nay weight equipment ever has to. Parts are worn and have to be replaced so that everything feels smooth when using stationary bikes, treadmills, stair machines and rowing machines.

Amenities

Lastly you will want to check out all of those really cool amenities�.or maybe not.

Suntan Beds – Are you going to get a great deal on the suntanning? Do you even care if you ever use a suntan bed? If not why even factor that into whether you want to join?

Squash or racquetball – if there is some kind of courts look at whether you have anyone to play with, if your are outgoing you may find plenty of people to play with but if not it may be just a waste of space to you�and your membership fees pay for that upkeep.

Proshop and snack bar – these are among the most expensive places for clothes, drinks and equipment on the planet. Always an excuse for a break from the workout but they will always lighten your wallet.

Personal trainer on staff – This could be a great one, if there is a personal trainer then you may want to pay the 40 or so dollars an hour to improve your workouts but it can add up over time. See if there is some kind of plan for 10 sessions or something. And if you set up training then remember to take lots of notes in the car in the parking lot afterwards.

Pricing the Health Club

After you have been through more than a couple gyms and fitness centers you are going to know the tour pretty well and the hard close at the end that tries to have you sign up before you leave the door. Do not sign up right away as you can always leverage how the other gyms are when you are ready to sign up in the end. Every area of the country is a bit different as far as memberships go for health clubs but almost always there is a monthly payment, some kind of signup fee and a two or three year contract. When you are ready to decide look at all of the factors that are important and discount any amenities that you will be paying for but not using. The decision is usually a tough one between a couple of places but in the end I am sure you will be happy with your decision and on your way to an exciting new lifestyle.

Tags: bodybuilders, cardio equipment, fitness center, fitness club, gym equipment, gym salesperson, health club, health club equipment, Miscellaneous equipment, nay weight equipment, personal trainer, rowing, salesman, squash, Tour Health Club, workout area, workout clothes

OK now we can talk about one of the main determining factors on whether you will go to the gym now or then or all of the time. You may think motivation will always carry you through but in actual fact if you are only a block away from the gym you will probably have a better chance of making it to the gym on a regular basis.

The closest health club to your house may not be the best one for you but the important thing is to look at your schedule and decide when and where you are going to work out. In the past I have worked out before work, at lunch and in the evening. Decide when in your schedule you would like to fit in your exercise and from there decide if you are going to work out before work? Are you going to go to the health club at lunch? Are you going to go to the gym after work or after dinner? One other time that you may think about a workout is on the weekend. If you are going to be working out during the week closer to your workplace then maybe going to the gym on the weekend is just not that important to you. On the other hand if you have a busy schedule during the week then going to the health club on the weekends may be one of your best options and in that case you will want the gym to be close to home.

I have found in the past that the price that a gym charges is based on how far it is from the downtown core. Here in Calgary I was once able to join a gym in a non residential area for $19 per month and another downtown for $55 per month..apparently a good deal though. You are going to find that if you want to have a buddy or spouse join a health club with you then it will have to be close for both of you and convenient for both of you as partnerships in the gym are really hard to keep.

Tags: calgary, exercise, gym, health club, motivation, residential area, USD, workout

Let’s go through the staff that you will meet on your first visit to a health club.

The first person that you are going to meet at a health club is a receptionist that will introduce you to a salesman. The job of the receptionist is to give any new visitors a introduction to the salesperson and to set the tone of the conversation that you are about to have with the salesperson you are about to meet.

Health Clubs have staff that are usually cross trained and because of the type of work that there is in a health club it is probably OK to have trainers do membership sales as well. Remember that if the salespeople are doubling up as trainers you want to make sure that the trainers are really trainers and not just salespeople that took a weekend course in how to train people.

Besides sales staff every health club has some kind of training staff. Quite often with a smaller gym you will find the staff that does the selling is also the same staff that does the training. Other staff at the Health club may include a receptionist, juice bar staff, pro shop staff and equipment maintenance people.

When evaluating the staff at the health club, make sure that you are looking for credentials for the trainers. There are two types of certifications. Health Club trainer certifications are an important way to be able to judge whether the trainers have the skills to educate and show you how to eat and exercise. The following are the two most popular certifications.

NCCA certification - NCCA is a 3rd party governing body whose function it is to impose certification standards and identify quality programs to candidates and the public that are in strict compliance and produce valid, competent, and worthy personal fitness trainer graduates

ACE Certification - The ACE Personal Trainer Certification is designed for trainers providing any form of one-on-one instruction. Once you successfully pass the ACE Personal Trainer certification exam you will have demonstrated your knowledge of basic exercise science, nutrition, fitness assessment, exercise programming, and instructional and spotting techniques.

You should be asking about certifications and listening carefully to the answers that you get about these certifications. When I was younger certification was the first question that I was asked in applying for jobs at gyms so this should be important to you as well.

Lastly the staff that you will not see and should know about is the person that is doing maintenance on the equipment in the gym. I will cover this again but just be aware that if any equipment stops working in a health club or fitness center I have found that it will be fixed either in one day or in six months, the gym has to decide how important it is for equipment to be fixed.

Tags: ACE Personal Trainer, health club, NCCA, receptionist, salesman

Health Clubs, How do you decide which one to join?

One of the great mysteries of a fitness plan is how to decide which health club, gym or fitness center is the right one for you. Most people go around and ask people they know which on to join and over the year I have belonged to a half dozen of so health clubs or gyms.

The Decision to join a gym

Congratulations on your decision to join a health club. This is one decision that once you follow through with, and keep up your level of commitment will forever change your life and how you relate to people, food and exercise. There is initially on joining a gym or health club an excitement in the future and a real clarity of purpose. I have never felt the excitement of being in a gym by doing any kind of other exercise.

Health clubs are a business and since you are going to be doing business with a Health Club you should be armed with information and the ability to make a decision based on what is important to you and not what is pitched to your by the health club salesman. I want to be very clear here, the onus is on you to decide what you want and need in a health club and the nice lady or mans job is simply to have you join their club.

What I will do within this series is educate you on what is important to think about and after that you can make the decision yourself, armed with the knowledge that you need to take that health club sales pitch head on and rebut it.

The process of finding a gym

In these next few articles I will help you to create a checklist of what is important when you go out looking for fitness center to join. We will uncover staff and what to look for, membership hours, fitness equipment, health club amenities, classes worth taking or not and of course the price that you should pay and how to decide what is fair.

If you already belong to a gym, fine, this may allow you to reevaluate whether you are at the right place and if you do not belong to a gym you will probably be joining one soon and I hope all the information you will find will help you make an informed decision on what kind of health club is for you.

Tags: club amenities, exercise health, fitness center, Fitness Equipment, fitness plan, food, health club, health club salesman, Health Clubs, joining a gym, sales pitch