Here are a few interesting statistics courtesy of the broader gym industry:
“Up to 45 percent of fitness-club members quit going in any given year”
(International Health, Racquet & Sports Club Association)
“It’s a statistical fact that 93% of people quit going to the gym or quit using their home equipment in the first 90 days”
(quickgymcs.com)
“Nine out of ten people stop using the gym after just 3 months”
(Dr. Stuart Farrimond)
“…most people who make those resolutions trip up in the first 90 days.”
(Alan Marlatt, the director of the Addictive Behaviors Research Center at the University of Washington)
I wrote a blog a few months back that included 16 reasons why our gym does not have a predominance of isolating fitness machines. Rather, we have racks, platforms, specialty bars, chains, bands, plyo-boxes, etc. I originally wrote these reasons down and posted them in the gym as an explanation for visitors and newcomers. This saves us a lot of talking when new folks ask “where are all the machines?”
This type of equipment obviously dominates the floor space of many typical gyms. The idea is that these isolating machines allow a person to individually work all of the major muscles, one at a time in a full body circuit and then go home. Regarding our intentional omission of this type of equipment, there is a 17th reason which is perhaps more important than the first 16. This reason really sheds light on why so many of us just quit going to the gym, as the statistics and references noted above strongly reinforce.
There is an abundance of evidence both statistical and anecdotal showing a sharp drop off in gym attendance from February to the end of March each year. This correlates almost perfectly with all of the great research and experience I have read on the topic of advanced human performance regarding “neuro-muscular fatigue” and “accommodation” (lack of new adaptation) from the ongoing use of typical movement-isolating gym machines. These are just clinical terms for the rather simple idea that your mind and body “get sick and tired” of doing the same exercise. This predicament is manifest via plateaus or decreases in strength and performance of the exercises. The physical results that use of this equipment is supposed to create – creation of attractive new muscle, etc – will then also stop. In many cases, even though we continue to “do our work” at the gym, these results can even diminish.
Allow me to cite some scientific conclusions on this proven phenomenon. Please consider the words of a few of the most highly regarded and respected scientists and trainers on this topic. These venerated experts are responsible for the most proven work on the production of optimal human physical performance. This work has, and continues to produce the fastest, strongest athletes on the planet.
Training means: an exercise, a complex motor action with a defined motor structure (Yuri Verkhoshansky)
Training “methods” then, involve the way the exercise (means) is executed.
“When the training means ceases in assuring the increase in the corresponding parameters of the special work capacity (ie. Its training potential has already been realized/depleted), this means must be gradually substituted by a new means having higher training potential.”
(Yuri Verkhoshansky & Natalia Verkhoshansky, Special Strength Training Manual for Coaches, 2011)
“When I plan an athlete’s training, I incorporate a change in the means employed every 3 weeks; not waiting until the interest in them has waned. At the present time, specialists are inclined to believe that one should employ the same means for no more than 3 months” “There are a number who recommend that one periodically change the methods; since they lose their effectiveness after approximately one month”
(A.S. Medvedyev, A System of Multi-Year Training in Weightlifting, 1986)
“If a greater number of strength exercises is distributed, even if the athlete does a great amount of work, the effort will be better tolerated. If, on the contrary, only classical exercises are planned during training, then fatigue will appear faster, even if the general amount of work is more reduced”
(Weightlifting – Fitness For All Sports, Dr. Tamas Ajan, Prof. Lazar Baroga, 1988)
It should be emphasized that the long-term use of the same means, even if the volume is increased, not only will not increase one’s level of special fitness, but will also decrease the existing level of speed-strength and especially, maximum strength.” (Supertraining, Mel C Siff PhD, 2004)
The same message is repeated in all of the best, most highly regarded canons of research on human physical performance, again and again. These great minds and others like them have achieved general consensus on this subject. They are all saying the same thing. Regarding the training “means” – Change it up, or your body will adapt and you’ll see little to no results, you may even go backwards. This occurs generally in a period of 3 months or even less.
Worse still, these revered experts are not even directly referring to the hyper-restrictive machines most of us are exposed to at bigger commercial gyms. Unfortunately for the unenlightened, these machines even control aspects of the “method”. That is, the way we may change the actual use of the “means” (exercise) – type of muscular contraction, speed of movement, slight changes in the actual movement, etc. Thus, other than changing the amount of resistance (the weight stack), the “method” of using this type of equipment is also greatly restricted.
Thus, the message from these experts is even more damning in regard to these machines and their relative lack of effectiveness. Their conclusions help to expose the real reason “why” people so commonly “quit” going to the gym and working out all-together – a distinctly apparent lack of progress despite their work, time and effort.
The powers that be in the fitness industry tend to know this. This keeps a very small percentage (often only 3%) of paying gym members actually attending the gym more than a few times a week. This in turn allows gym owners to add more members. Why not? Most of them won’t show up anyways. Next time you are in a large, glitzy, corporate gym ask how many members they have. The average is generally 3,000 – 5,000 but can be much higher. I wonder what would happen if even one quarter of those folks all showed up on the same night? Those shiny machines sure look great though, and they certainly do the trick on the initial tour to get prospective members to sign up. These people are usually sold membership contracts for 1 or 2 years without knowing they are being set up to fail, right from the start via the cool-looking but highly ineffective equipment they will be using.
Where athletes are concerned, this situation cannot afford to exist! More reason for the public to train like our best athletes. So the next time you go to a big gym and see a floor dominated by all forms of isolating gym machine, you will recognize it for what it is…a room literally set up to help ensure your failure. If, after about 3 months of motivated efforts the results are simply not forthcoming, who WOULD continue? The really terrible part of all this is that we blame ourselves when this happens. “I must have just lost my will-power.” “I guess I just got lazy” “I can’t believe I’m paying for something I’m too lazy to use”. In reality, the very room in which you are working out and the equipment that fills it are helping to ensure your failure.