It is amazing how many people call around to different fitness businesses trying to find out their 'prices' so they can compare them. Taking care of your body and your health shouldn't be a luxury, it should be something you do no matter what… but unfortunately that isn't the reality for the majority of Australians.
What really upsets me more than anything when I ask new people if they are currently exercising is their response, "no… but I have a gym membership!"
The issue I have with gym memberships is if you join for 12 months there are 4 outcomes:
1. You get lots of use out of the gym and the $1000 you spend gave you great value.
2. You use the gym here and there and the average is about 20 workouts over the year (a popular option for many people) - Do the maths… you paid $50 a workout! You can get a Personal Trainer for that!
3. You use the gym hard core for the first 2 weeks, get distracted/unmotivated/cold/intimidated by the singlet crowd, and you don't use it for the other 50 weeks of the year. Thats $100 per workout! R-I-P-O-F-F
4. You join the gym, get a personal trainer, pre pay for 10 sessions… get so sore and busted from your first workout that you would rather visit your dentist for a wisdom tooth extraction than see that sadistic bastard with the tight buns and perfect hair who tortured you for enjoyment ever again! You just spend $750 a session!
5. I know I said 4, but every now and then people have joined a gym and prior to the end of their 12 months the gym closes its doors and packs up shop and you are left with a membership to a carpark!
Some people get great use out of their gym membership (on average about 30% of the members), however four of these five outcomes are bad… and the trouble is you might have saved $50 by not going to a more boutique and high service facility but it has cost you even more in the end! And that's not to mention what you get out of it!
Are you paying for a workout or a result?
When it comes to deciding where you will go it is important to decide what you want to get out of joining a gym/personal training studio. Are you paying for an exercise session? I think if you are, the workout needs to be so much higher quality than what you could ever do on your own or that you are getting super specialised exercises that only a professional could give you.
If you are paying for a result it is important to work out what exactly it is, that is going to get you a result. If you think all it takes is 30 mins or an hour of exercise here or there to get a result you are not seeing the whole picture. What you do in your week when you are not working out (the other 167 hours) has a massive influence over your result.
A few things your trainer should be doing:
1. Measuring. If you aren't actually tracking and measuring results, it is impossible to see if you are making progress. Feeling better and looser clothes are great, but your trainer should be able to give you some hard evidence that what you are doing with them is working!
2. You should be following a planned out program that is repeatable. An old trick average trainers use is to confuse you is variety. If you never do the same workout how do you know you have improved? It is definitely advisable to change up your workouts, but changing the session every week is the easiest way to hide the lack of results. I recommend changing the workout monthly, that way you have 4 weeks to build on each time.
3. Helping you keep focused during the week. Awesome trainers set you homework, follow up on your actions, check in on you between sessions, stalk you on Facebook (anything to keep you on track!) and ask you about your week. We have an amazing app that tracks what you are doing with your food and exercise and makes it super easy to get results, all you have to do is open the app and follow todays program!
4. Guarantee your results! If your trainer sits down with you and you set a goal to lose 9 kilos over the next 9 weeks, then she gives you the list of what to do and designs your workout plan, measures where you are at and says "if you follow this plan you will succeed" and then you follow that plan diligently over the 9 weeks and only lose 4 kilos… We believe they should give your money back! WOW! You paid for their advise, they didn't deliver… easy.
So next time you are making a decision about your health and well being, remember… the cheapest often is the nastiest and may even be the biggest wast of money and in the end the most expensive tag on your key chain.
*Disclaimer: Individual results vary based on agreed goals. Click here for details.
