Joining a gym is short term thinking

Save me a spot

Today's workout (elliptical): 60 minutes

This is has been a snowy winter, just like last year when I did over 70% of my running indoors. What's missing for me this year is a working treadmill, I decided to explore a short term gym membership to tide me over and started looking online at my options. 

You can learn a lot about joining a health club from their websites. For example, few sites will tell you the actual cost to join their gym. Instead of providing a price list, many say "call or click to request pricing." Why is this? Do they want to figure out how much money I'm willing to spend before committing to a cost? This is why people dislike shopping for a car.

For those health clubs that actually put their pricing on their website, I discovered a pretty wide variance in cost. Generally speaking, gyms with stark black and white designs with super athletic, good looking people seem to be very expensive (i.e., Equinox). They also tend to charge initiation or enrollment fees. Gyms with friendly designs and bright colors are much more reasonably priced and don't seem to add on extra costs (i.e., Planet Fitness).

10.5X more expensive than Planet Fitness

Most of these places offer either a day or full week free pass. I considered doing that, but I would need to go from gym to gym until our new treadmill is installed. I also envision a situation when, each time I go, the gym manager corners me and gives me a pitch like he's selling me a Florida timeshare. 

I happen to work in a place that has a well appointed fitness center and I can use it for free. I was hoping to do an occasional treadmill run there, but I concluded that I don't want to do a workout before my business day. Especially since it would require me to share a common shower and tiny locker room with my workmates. I really don't want to see that. Besides, when I get to the office, I like to get right to business.

We still don't have a date for our treadmill delivery so I may end up going for a couple of 7 day trials or joining Planet Fitness for a month for $10 if that's truly their deal. If I can drive to Bethpage State Park to run on the bike path, I can drive to a gym in the same town. Maybe someone should come up with a service model like Airbnb, where people let you come in and use their home fitness equipment. That would make it really easy.

I spent an hour on the elliptical machine this morning and actually liked the workout. But after looking at gyms online with expansive fitness rooms filled with high end treadmills, I'm ready for a change. Still, getting back on the road without worrying about slipping, or no sidewalk escape routes would make me the happiest of all.