If you and I were sitting here a year from today, what things would have to happen for you to feel very satisfied with your progress?

Are you going to the gym regularly enough to achieve the physiological adaptations that you want? And the data says that the big box gyms are just not a solution for that.

Welcome to the Strength Changes Everything podcast, where we introduce you to the information, latest research, and tools that will enable you to live a strong, healthy life. On this podcast, we will also answer your questions about strength, health, and wellbeing. I’m Amy Hudson.

I own and operate three exercise coach studios. My co-hosts are Brian Saigon, co-founder and CEO of The Exercise Coach, and Dr. James Fisher, leading researcher in evidence-based strength training. And now for today’s episode.

Welcome back to the podcast. Today we are talking about big box gyms. I don’t know where you live, but there’s so many options out there for people to sign up and participate in exercise. And there’s sometimes the options can be overwhelming. And so today’s episode is all about big box gyms or different choices when it comes to exercise and the goal of this episode is really for you as a listener to be able to reflect on is the option of exercise that you are participating in delivering the results that you are looking for from exercise. So we’re going to talk about how to articulate really what you’re after when it comes to your exercise. Why are you doing it? What’s been standing in your way? We’re going to describe the big box gym scene and describe you know how traditional exercise recommendations or environments can fail some people or lead people to frustration and also make a case for how a coach can lead somebody to greater success when it comes to exercise and achieving results. So there’s a lot to this episode. We hope you’ll stick with us the entire time as we delve into this topic. So let’s dive in. Dr. Fisher is with me today.

How are you doing, Dr. Fisher? I’m doing very well. Thank with me today. How are you doing, Dr. Fisher?

I’m doing very well.

And you, Amy? How are you doing today? I’m doing well.

I’m doing well.

Awesome. And, yes. So let’s describe, first of all, you know, there’s so many exercise options out there. And we meet people every day at our exercise coach studios who have tried a lot of things There’s so many exercise options out there. We meet people every day at our exercise coach studios who have tried a lot of things over the years and they still come in saying, you know, I haven’t achieved the results that

I’ve been looking for from exercise yet. And there’s reasons why that is. And so let’s start by just talking about big box gyms. So Dr. Fisher, what are your thoughts on this?

Dr. Fisher Firstly, I think this is a fascinating area and this is really one of the key questions around exercise habits and ultimately sort of health span and lifespan. We know that about 10% of the population engage in regular strength training. Uh, and that’s so low it’s, you know, it’s frightening. Um, but what’s really concerning about that is of those people that attend kind of big box gyms, um, only 67%, oh, sorry, only one third. So two thirds of people don’t actually even attend once per week. So even the people that are engaging or that say that they’re engaging in regular exercise or regular strength training are actually not engaging in it regularly enough. Um, and there’s a few reasons around that.

You know, we talk about big box gyms and there’s, there’s, there’s some data where we’ve actually done some studies around this. We’ve never published the research, but we’ve done some studies around. Kind of people’s interpretation of, of being in a gym environment and why they’re not comfortable with it or why they feel like it’s not efficient or effective for their, um, for their goals.

So what the first one really is, is motive. Um, oftentimes a client is, is lacking motivation.

So. The, the kind of a stage in their life or they, they may be their health where they understand that they should go to a gym. Um, but they’re not really sure what to do and they’re not really sure how to do it. So kind of the minimum, the minimum commitment to their health that they’re willing to make at that point is to pay for gym membership. And the big problem with that is it doesn’t cross over into anything.

To some extent, it’s a bit of a superficial commitment. The question is whether they will then attend, and the data says that they won’t. And in fact, 50% of new members actually will, will, um, stop their membership within the first six months because of non-attendance. So they make this kind of superficial financial commitment to join a gym, but then they don’t go.

And of course they don’t gain any health benefits by going, uh, or by not going because they haven’t been. And so they stopped going to the gym. So it’s a very superficial approach. And, you know, before we started the podcast, we were talking, I made the analogy, this is like going out and buying fruit and vegetables and putting them in your cupboard. That doesn’t make you healthy. You have to eat them. Uh, you have to prepare them and cook them and have them with a meal with some degree of regularity and consistency to make like healthy behavior changes. You know, going out and making that that low level commitment of buying the vegetables is not enough. And obviously, you know, you were talking about this idea of supervision and that’s a big part of this as well. We know that when you attend a gym on your own, um, any kind of exercise facility on your own without a coach, without supervision, then your level of adaptation is going to be less than it would be with a coach.

Your degree of accountability is less. Your technique won’t be as good. Your safety is challenged and so forth. And ultimately most people become frustrated by what they’re doing. They don’t make progress. And again, they leave the gym. They stop their make progress. And again, they leave the gym, they stop their gym membership.

So joining a big box gym just doesn’t seem to work for some people based on their own motivation. I guess that further, what’s the gym actually doing for you? And, and this is not to berate, you know, big box gyms, because obviously they provide a service, they provide equipment and they provide space, um, and the things that they do. But actually that’s really all that they’re providing for you.

They’re providing an opportunity for you to exercise. So if you’re not, if you’re not engaged in that level already, or you’re not understanding of what you need to do with that level of commitment, then you’re simply not going to attend. And, and in fact, the gym to some extent is reliant upon a degree of non-attendance. They will sell far more gym memberships than they can actually accommodate.

Every, uh, big box gym will have a maximum occupancy on their gym floor. And if every one of their members showed up at the same time, then they would have to turn people away, you know, so that they’re reliant upon non-attendance to some extent, um, or, or certainly varied attendance times. So the gym isn’t really permitted to your health improvements and the adaptations that you want to see either, and there’s a couple of other things.

So there’s a big social element in big box gyms, um, both good and bad in kind of qualitative things. So there’s a big social element in big box gyms, both good and bad. In kind of qualitative interviews, a lot of people have reported that they feel judged. When they go to a gym, they feel, they look around and they see other people that are maybe stronger than they are or that are leaner than they are, that are fitter than they are or more muscular than they are. And they wonder if that people, that those people are looking at them and kind of judging them.

So people, people report feeling judged. Um, and that’s okay because it’s to some extent, it’s akin to the fact that if I went out to work on my car now and you know, you put 10 mechanics around me and said, they’re going to watch me work on my car, how would I feel? I feel like that’s pretty unfair because I don’t know exactly what I’m doing. Whereas if you gave me a mechanic to talk me through what I was doing on the car, so I’m now doing it with that supervision and with that coaching, then that would make a big difference. First of all, I wouldn’t feel as judged because I would have a mechanic helping me out. But second of all, I wouldn’t expect them to be looking at me so much because they can see that I’ve sought that guidance and that expertise. And then the other social element that kicks in is that people, when they go to big box gyms, they’ll often become friends with other people there, or they might attend with a friend or a colleague or so forth, and their workout ultimately becomes unproductive. It becomes inefficient from a time perspective.

They maybe won’t work as hard during the session and so forth. So there’s this big social element going on. Um, when I go to the doctor or the dentist, I don’t take a buddy. Uh, I go for the health benefits of going to the doctor or the dentist. And, and if we think about gym membership and exercise in the same way, we go for the health benefits of going to the doctor or the dentist. And if we think about gym membership and exercise in the same way, we go for the expertise that somebody can give us and the health benefits that we can get, not for the social element of being in that environment.

And we’ve talked to you in the past about how long exercise takes and how long a time commitment is a barrier to a lot of people.

We’ve mentioned that many times in the past and so exercise takes and how long a time commitment is a barrier to a lot of people.

We’ve mentioned that many times in the past and so it makes me think with your third point about the social element. How easy is it to spend an hour or two in a big box gym? Now if it’s meeting social needs, that’s one thing, but is it meeting my physical needs or my goals when it comes to my exercise? Maybe not, right?

And so we might spend a lot more time, but not get as many results. And yeah, I can definitely see that.

Yeah.

And ultimately that leads us to sort of the questions that we have to ask. Um, you know, when people attend a big box gym, they’re hopefully attending with an idea to make physiological adaptations, whether that’s to get stronger, to overcome injury or to ward off injury, maybe to lose weight, to function better, to live healthier or lose back pain or so forth. And so there is a long-term goal. But on this podcast, we’ve also talked about being process-driven, and the process here is regular attendance.

You know, it doesn’t happen by going to the gym once. You don’t go to the gym once and suddenly go, oh, I’m stronger now, I don’t need to go anymore. It needs to be done with some degree of regularity and some degree of frequency. So actually, when we talk about this goal, we can break it back down to the process of, are you going to the gym regularly? Are you going to the gym regularly enough to achieve the physiological adaptations that you want? And the data says that the big box gyms are just not a solution for that.

Mm-hmm.

So what is it about, let’s say, an exercise coach studio that is there in the model itself to help people succeed.

Well, it’s the complete opposite to a big box gym. So, you know, in the studies that we’ve done when we talk to people about what they don’t like about big box gyms, the phrases that have been used are things like sensory overload, there’s mirrors, there’s loud music, there’s lycra, there’s lots of skin. And if people go to CrossFit and this is not berating CrossFit in any way, but typically the men don’t wear tops and the women don’t wear much more. And for this skin and sweat, it’s not an environment that typically is appealing to people that don’t love exercise. Now obviously if you go to CrossFit or if you love exercise in that way, then that’s great. But if you don’t love those things, then you wouldn’t feel comfortable in a big box gym. So what is the exercise coach? It’s smaller, it’s well-lit, it’s cooler, air-conditioned, it’s all about health and efficiency and it’s supervised. There’s limited mirrors or no mirrors, it’s not about Lycra. It’s not about judgment or anything like that. It’s really about the efficiency of the process of the workout to achieve those longer term goals.

Mm-hmm. One other huge piece of it, honestly, is appointments. Having an appointment makes somebody way more likely to do something. It’s just like going to a chiropractor or the eye doctor or the dentist. This is something I have to do and I have it scheduled. That alone helps people to make it a part of their everyday life and to succeed. The social element of knowing somebody’s waiting for you, uh, is so much more motivating for a lot of people that just bringing myself to motivate myself to do this without anybody holding me accountable. That is hard to overstate that, but it really helps.

Yeah. We, you know, with some of our studies from some time back was one of my, uh, one of my research students. We looked at the exercise motives around different exercise modalities, whether it was gym membership, attendance, things like CrossFit, or one-on-one supervised strength training. And the motives were quite disparate between the groups.

The people that attend CrossFit or, and certainly the people that CrossFit had a high sport participation motivation. There was a high degree of competition and social affiliation that they like being part of that team environment. And, you know, kudos to them. That was great. A lot of people will enjoy that.

Um, it’s interesting to make the analogy to sport participation because the injury rate is, is relatively high at CrossFit as well. Other people that attend the gym, there might be some degree of affiliation or some degree of social element as well to be able to say that they go to a gym. The people that engage in one-on-one supervised strength training actually reported higher motivation for things like ill health avoidance, um, and health related benefits, uh, for, for their strength training and for their exercise habits.

So I think that’s really telling that these people are engaged in this kind of exercise for these reasons, um, rather than because they want to be part of a club or they want to be part of a club or they want to be part of a group. So they’ve clearly found their way to these, these other, um, exercise, uh, habits.

Yeah. One, one story I used to tell is that, you know, growing up, I wasn’t in a lot of sports and I never considered myself very athletic or, um, yeah, I just wasn’t an athlete.

And, um, it felt like to me for many years that there was a club of people who were fit people.

And that was a certain percentage of the population and I wasn’t in it. And so if anybody out there has ever felt that you describe being judged, right. Or like there’s some kind of club of people who really care about exercise and who know what they’re doing and who are fit and it’s just unattainable or it’s just out of reach, you know, it’s a myth, it’s a myth. And we’ve talked in other podcasts that exercise doesn’t have to be complicated.

There’s not a secret, you know, society that some people know all the things there are to know and they won’t, you know, only they know it and only they can achieve it. Strength and health is attainable to everybody, but most of us out there just need a coach. When we talk about having a coach, it’s kind of like any other thing I want to be better at that I’m not good at yet.

Right?

Like learning another language or learning tennis. I, this is where I’m at in that skill and this is where I want to be. And there’s a big gap there. And I could try and spin my wheels and and look up YouTube videos or check out a book from the library to learn how to do that on my own but very quickly I would hit that frustration piece that that the lack of motivation because of how how long that process that learning curve is for me to get myself there plus I’m relying on my own motivation all the time to really stick with it. And it’s kind of a large learning curve, right? Or I could hire a coach to help me get from where I am to where I want to be. And what it’s doing is it’s just collapsing the timeline for me to get there. And what does that do? It makes me motivated. Once I actually achieve that and I see success and what I’m looking to have happen faster, then I’m motivated.

And then I want to keep doing that. And we want to get people to that, um, satisfaction, that place of seeing those changes in those results faster so they can stick with it and not lose motivation yet again. Which is the story of many people.

I love the analogy of learning a language, you know, it’s so, it’s so comparable to joining a gym, you know, you go on by a book to try and learn a language, but ultimately I think most people know this, this is just wholly unsuccessful because they, first of all, they don’t, they then don’t commit the time to read the book, but they don’t have the kind of guidance to work through the book in the right pace or the right repetition rates or with the right nuances and exercises, of course, the same way.

You know, people, people can’t be expected to become an expert in certain things that they, they need to be able to defer to an expert, whether it’s a lawyer or an accountant or a dentist or a mechanic. So the idea of being able to defer to an exercise coach, you know, coach to guide them through the workout and walk them through it in 20 minutes is, you know, is ideal.

Well, it’s actually smarter, right? It’s smarter. If I know that this is unlikely to get me from where I am to where I want to go, that’s it’s the smarter choice to to get a coach. And that’s where I want to revisit. There’s a question we ask people all the time. I think it’s important for people to stay in tune with what their actual desires are when it comes to exercising. Because it’s easy for us to participate in things for many years, but never see the real changes that we’re after. And so one question for you to consider as a listener to this that we always ask people is, if you and I were sitting here a year from today, what things would have to happen for you to feel very satisfied with your progress? And so if you’re listening to this and if you think of four or five things that would really mean a lot to you to have happen as a result of exercising, whether that’s feeling stronger, getting a better golf swing, being able to lift the luggage over your head when you’re traveling and next time that you’re on a plane, having a better vertical or a better golf swing, playing with your grandkids and getting off the floor, losing weight, having more energy and sleeping better, whatever those things that pop to mind for you are, just ask yourself, is what I’m doing leading me to those results or not? And if they’re not, there might be a smarter answer for you. Have you heard Dr. Fisher, and you mentioned this a little bit earlier in the episode about the statistics about how, about people visiting big box gyms. I came across a study a few years ago where the title, the headline was, apparently you can’t even pay people to work out. Have you seen that study?

Yeah. Yeah, there’s actually quite a lot of research around the topic, but certainly a few of the studies have done things as extreme as pay people to go to a gym. And if you’re not motivated to go to a gym, even being paid to go will not make you attend. Attendance was incredibly low, even people who were financially motivated to go to a gym, even being paid to go will not make you attend.

Attendance was incredibly low. Even people who were financially motivated to go. So, I mean, you know, less extreme than that is of course, if you take away the cost of gym membership, we’ll take away the cost of gym membership. We’ve done a number of studies where we’ve invited people to be part of a study as long as they come in and work out. And even then people that don’t have a history of training don’t

want to come in and work out. Even if they’re given the opportunity to do that. So it, you know, it’s really difficult to try to get people to overcome that. And a big part of it is the motives that we talked about, you know, feeling judged and not understanding what they should be doing and so on and so forth.

Yeah.

Well, I think as a human, it’s important to be honest about human nature and understand that it’s, uh, you know, my motivation can be internal or it can be derived from an external thing, like an appointment or somebody else who’s guiding me along, we just know, we just know it’s very obvious, you know, why, um, or what. That motivation is hard to keep. And so, you know, if you’re listening to this, it’s just important to stay honest about that. Um, very fascinating. Uh, do you have any other kind of conclusions or tips or pieces of advice then for people listening to this episode to consider?

Oh, I think the main thing for people to remember is that the perfect workout is the workout that people will do. So if you are a member of a big box gym, but you’re not going, then you’ve got to, you’ve got to, you know, almost acknowledge that that’s just not working for you. That’s not the best way for you to engage in strength training. A lot of practitioners and physicians and doctors go away and say to people, oh, you should exercise more. And that’s really not enough. And if they go one step further, they might say, oh, you should engage in strength training. And that’s far better. But actually, for some people, that’s still not prescriptive enough. And the idea of actually going away and finding a coach and engaging in supervised strength training is far more beneficial, far more appropriate. And of course, it’s that process, as we talked about earlier, that leads to that outcome that’s the goal.

Absolutely, Yeah.

Just going is a win, right? Well, if something we said in this episode resonated with you, whether you reflected on the fact that, hey, you know, I still have a lot of outstanding outcomes that I was hoping to achieve through my exercise efforts that I just haven’t achieved over the course of the past several years. First of all, you’re not alone in that.

No shame. This is very normal. We’ve made the case in this episode that 80 to 85 percent of people are really not achieving or participating in meaningful regular exercise that is really delivering the outcomes that. It has the potential to deliver to them because of all the obstacles that we know. And so if that’s you, if you find yourself struggling to stay motivated in what you’re doing or you realize after reflection that you know traditional exercise efforts haven’t worked for you, you aren’t attending the gym that you paid for, check out an exercise coach. We encourage you to do that. Visit exercisecoach.com and you can try a different approach with a trainer for two free sessions. So I encourage you to think about doing that or think about one thing you can do to shift your trajectory forward to really actually take a step in the direction that you’re trying to head. We’ll see you next time on the podcast and I hope you remember strength changes everything. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed today’s episode, please share it with a friend. You can submit a question or connect with the show at strengthchangeseverything.com. Join us next week for another episode and be sure to follow the show on Apple Podcasts,

YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts so that you never miss another episode. so that you never miss another episode. Here’s to you and your best health.