I often describe the gym I manage as the Anti-gym. For many of the people who sit down to find out about joining, I often address the “elephant in the room” right from the start. That is, “gyms suck!” The folks sitting across from me often smile and nod in agreement.
Let’s face it; any effective weightlifting gym will likely be an enclosed space, full of sweaty people grunting and groaning and clanging heavy weights. Other than keeping it really clean, orderly and having the least offensive music playing, there is not much you can do to improve this situation. You can fill it with really great people who are positive, helpful and who know what they are doing. That really helps a lot. Regardless though, compared to, say…having a great dinner with a bunch of friends, watching a good movie, partying, getting intimate with someone you like, listening to live music, and many other activities that life has to offer, I’m afraid I must agree – “gym’s suck.”
As far as I can tell, there are only two things you can do to improve this situation:
- Make the time that you do spend in the gym as enjoyable as possible
- Minimize the total amount of time one needs to spend in the gym in order to get really great results
#1 is pretty simple. As mentioned, fill the gym with members who have a great attitude – nice, civilized, respectful people who help each other out. Keep the place clean, as aesthetically pleasing as possible, answer questions, and makes sure all the equipment works. Generally, assist people as much as possible with the correct information and instruction. I’ve found that running off to get people coffee every now and then is also appreciated.
At our gym we try our best to push these two ideas to their limits, especially #2. This happens naturally when you apply advanced, high intensity strength methodologies to the folks who have never tried them – that would be the vast majority of the public. Why does this work so well with folks who have never tried them? The answer is because these people need to do very low volumes of the most basic compound movements to actually get the best results.
This means that after a good warm-up they are going to progress the fastest by doing only the major multi-joint free weight lifts. That should put their workout at roughly 45 minutes to 1 hour. Now, the optimum # of workouts per week for these folks will be only 2 or 3 (Siff). When this basic plan is followed, fat burning muscle is created with incredible speed. This is especially true for ladies who have been wrongly conditioned into thinking that only stuff like hours and hours of high rep, muscle isolating exercises, fitness classes and cardio machines are the answer to their problems (this nonsense is almost always accompanied by the supervision of an expensive personal trainer). Three of the physiological reasons this simple plan works so well include:
- Major, body changing adaptations (mostly new functional muscle) take place fast because most people have never before correctly executed these full- body free weight exercises, especially with lower reps and high intensities
- Maximal, positive hormonal changes rapidly take place
- The highest possible increases in resting metabolic rate take place during these workouts which results in dramatic increases in fat burn following the workouts
This dramatic physical improvement ride goes on for approximately 2-4 months before upping the intensities further with a new program, schedule, additional exercises and variation. The volume always stays relatively low. This allows the great results to just keep on coming.
Now for people who generally “hate the gym”, here is where I see the strangest things happen. By providing a gym which effectively embraces the two ideas listed above, people actually end up getting more out of the gym than the time and effort they are putting into it. For most new folks, this unusual economic phenomenon is a first. The benefits of showing up only 2-3 times per week for an hour or so and engaging in this simple program quickly begin to outweigh the costs. Their mirrors, the way their clothes fit, and the people in their lives assure them of this. Here is where behavioral psychology shines through and turns their original perspective on the gym upside down.
THEY END UP COMING IN MORE THAN 2-3 TIMES PER WEEK AND WE HAVE TO TELL THEM IT’S TOO MUCH AND TO GO HOME OR THEIR PROGRESS WILL STOP!
Yup, these people who hated the gym now have to be advised to stay away from it, otherwise overtraining may result. This happens with newer folks at our gym all the time. I love it when this happens. I suppose it means we are doing our job.