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Mt Airy Exercise

How To Make A Gym Membership Work For You

After being in the industry for over 14 years and owning a facility for over 12 years, I’ve noticed that when budgets are tight or expenses need to be cut, gym memberships are often one of the first to go. In reality it should be one of the last.

Here’s my opinion on how to make a gym membership work for you and why it’s valuable.

Years ago the boutique style gym wasn’t quite a thing yet, CrossFit did a great job of helping to get today’s smaller, functional training facilities on the map. Before then there were large, corporate owned gyms that offered classes, personal training and just a regular old membership, where most people just roamed about. The cost typically wasn’t impactful enough if you missed three weeks in a row or eventually three months in a row.

Here’s why those gyms, and most of our mindset about gyms in general don’t work:

  1. You’re signed up,  all excited and motivated to start but you loose that motivation or you simply don’t know what to do when you are there.
  2. There’s no accountability, so the first week you miss it’s not noticed, then all of a sudden you haven’t gone in 3 months and it’s still not noticed. Eventually you fall out of a routine.
  3. Larger gyms are actually designed for you to not attend.
  4. When you don’t know what to do when you’re at the gym you start to wonder if your time might be better spent doing something else.
  5. If you aren’t following a specific workout and nutrition plan you probably aren’t going to get the results you want in the time period you want and you get frustrated.

In a smaller, boutique style gym, like Urban Athlete, we attempt to break the mindset and limitations listed out above.

  1. At Urban Athlete – it’s about lifestyle. When you sign up for a gym membership we want you to come on a regular and consistent basis.
  2. If you are doing personal training we will make sure the workout is tailored to the goals we discussed in your success session.
  3. If you are doing group training we will make sure that you are comfortable in the group setting and have modifications and progressions available for when/if the workout needs to be adjusted.
  4. Starting a new habit can be challenging and we want you to succeed, so all you have to do is get to the gym, we will show you what you need to do.
  5. We also want your workouts to be fun! In addition to the workouts, we host charity events and appreciation events that allow the community to become more connected to each other.
  6. Supporting you in your efforts is huge, we want to be able to lift you up, even if it’s just for the time you are at the gym.

The best thing for making a gym membership work for you is:

  1. Make sure it’s convenient to home or work or along the route to get to either of these places.
  2. Schedule your gym time like you do all other appointments and don’t miss.
  3. Set small goals; if you attend the gym 36 times (that’s just 3x a week) in 90 days, reward yourself!
  4. Let your coach know what support you need to keep at it. That’s part of the reason we’re there, to help lift you up.

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