3 Reasons To Avoid Commercial Gyms

By Dan Grant
[Trainer Talk]
How could going to a commercial gym backfire on you?  Dan Grant uncovers a gym’s true motivations.
It’s time to rock the boat again and start a conversation about how commercial gyms are not only a rip-off to you, but also a giant waste of your time.  Before you jump to conclusions about why my opinions are the way they are, I have talked to commercial gym owners and managers and also had a stint as a commercial gym personal trainer at one point, so there is some experience behind these points.

All About The Money

Before you start even thinking about going to a commercial gym, there’s one thing you need to understand right away.  They want your money.  They don’t really care all that much about your health.  If they cared about your health they would tell you that about 85 per cent of people who own gym memberships don’t make an appearance after mid-February every year, according to a gym owner I spoke to.

The club chain I used to work for had around 25,000 members.  So that means only about 4,000 of those actually made an appearance at the gym throughout the year.  It costs roughly $50 a month these days to own a gym membership and some gyms charge much more.  Now let’s say you add in some personal training for $50 a session and you go twice a week.  Now you’re paying $450 a month (but don’t worry…they’ll have financing options for you).  My programs for members cost anywhere between $99 and $189 a month.  With my programs you get three fitness camps a week, nutritional guides and access to me personally if you ever need help or advice when we don’t see each other.  Plus I offer a double your money back guarantee.  I’m not trying to promote my business here; all I’m saying is that it might be in your best interest to go somewhere a little more personal and pay a higher monthly fee to actually get results.

Expert Advice?

Another problem, which most unsuspecting members don’t know, is that probably 95 per cent of the personal trainers that work in commercial gyms do nothing but put their clients through body building workouts or get them to play with new toys like the BOSU ball.  If you’re doing bicep curls while standing on a BOSU ball, I suggest you find a new trainer.

Certifications mean something, but not always.  If you want to be a personal trainer I could tell you how to become one in probably less then an hour and I guarantee you could be working at a commercial gym in a week.  When I worked at the gym, they were hiring people who weren’t even certified at all, just planning on becoming certified.  The fitness industry is a very dirty industry with no real standards at all when it comes to stuff like this, which is really unfortunate because it’s the gym's bottom line that’s winning.  You are losing because you are paying a lot of money to get knowledge from somebody who looks in shape and thought training would be easy money.
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