Gym notes #3

As vaguely promised a few days ago, herewith my dearly earned insights on Why We Pay for Gym.

I don’t know.

But if I did, my carefully developed hypothesis would be based on the following truism: It’s hard to go to gym if you don’t belong to one.

Not as blindingly obvious as it sounds, I discovered this over the course of nearly two years in the Lap of Riverside Luxury™. Our lovely flat had a lovely, if overchlorinated, swimming pool and jacuzzi, a sauna, and mini-gym with equipment that – while limited in number, and antiquated in design – was natheless perfectly adequate for a pretty decent workout. Especially when someone brought in a physio ball. So, having to walk about five steps from our building to the gym, and having free and easy access at any time, you’d think I would have been more dedicated than at any other time in my gymgoing life.

Not so. I did go through phases when I was quite good about working out, and would do my duty four or five times a week. I might keep this up for, say, two months at a stretch. If that. I don’t think there were many periods when I didn’t go at all - even if only once a week. But most of my ‘workouts’ didn’t exactly overtax me.

When the physio ball disappeared, I got one of my very own for Christmas. I decided to keep it upstairs, rather than in the gym, because clearly it would be more convenient, and hence, I would be more likely to use it regularly.

Er, no.

So there I was last week in the mat room, trying to push the physio ball around with my toes without falling over, and pondering: why do I do this here, and not at home, where I have a perfectly good ball? (Answer: because there is no space to inflate my ball in the hamster cage we call a home, but that’s beside the point.) Which led me in turn to ponder the mystery of the treadmill (see ‘Colour me stupid’, below). Which led me to mull over my appalling record of using our at-home gym, as compared and contrasted with my serious and regular efforts at the commercial sweat factory.

My conclusion, if you can dignify it with that name, is that gym is like psychotherapy (as described by the good Dr Freud): you have to have a stake in it. I’d like to think it’s not all about money, necessarily, but there has to be some kind of stake. For me, the commitment of walking down the road in the frozz is enough to ensure I make a proper effort (or it’s not worthwhile, is it?). That doesn’t explain why I go at all, though. Maybe it is about having paid – having chosen to allocate a substantial chunk of my severely strained budget to this, I’d better make the most of it. But honestly, I never have a mental argument going ‘Oh but you have to, or it’s £50 down the drain.’

Put your thoughts in the box below, please.