![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/https:\/\/images.ft.com\/v3\/image\/raw\/https%3A%2F%2Fd1e00ek4ebabms.cloudfront.net%2Fproduction%2F6e7ed8.jpeg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nGyms are warehouses of guilt. You enter feeling inadequate, surrounded by mirrors seemingly calibrated by Nasa to exaggerate every flaw, and leave smelling faintly of rubber and eau de changing room. Every missed session becomes a tiny moral failure, with cash quietly leaking from your bank account.<\/p>\n
Then there\u2019s congestion. January gyms are rammed. Changing rooms resemble a wetsuit convention. The equipment is always just about to be free and never is. You wait. You hover. You pretend to stretch, as if anyone believes that\u2019s what you came for. By joining in January, you\u2019re paying the price for going with the herd. The Ryanair model of fitness.<\/p>\n
Leaving is another matter. Gyms are wonderfully enthusiastic when you join and curiously bureaucratic when you try to escape. Notice periods, forms, emails that vanish. It\u2019s not malicious, just friction. Another small nudge designed to keep the direct debit alive long after your motivation has died.<\/p>\n
That said, I quite like a gym. I like routine and a cross trainer. At one point I liked it so much I joined KX in Chelsea. Less gym, more luxury wellness laboratory for people who already look irritatingly perfect. For north of \u00a3600 a month you\u2019re not so much exercising as being medically managed. There are ice baths to punish you for past sins, saunas, physios, nutritionists and hyperbaric oxygen chambers, because apparently the air in London is no longer aspirational enough. <\/p>\n
It\u2019s all very impressive, but none of it makes the cross trainer any more interesting. If your ambition is simply to be a bit less fat and not wheeze tying your shoes, it does feel excessive to require medical oxygen, extreme cold exposure and someone explaining your glutes. I\u2019ve reached an age where the gym is never going to give me the body I always imagined I had. Mostly because that body belonged to someone else, in a different decade, with bone structure.<\/p>\n
And there is a better option than joining a gym: join a sports club instead. I know, as a former chair of a lawn tennis club in Essex, that I\u2019m biased, but tennis, sports or country clubs, where the gym is a bolt-on rather than the main event, often cost about the same as a gym warehouse (and usually less than the high-end temples) but offer one crucial difference: variety.<\/p>\n
When you\u2019re bored of your playlist and the blinking cardio machines, you can do something else. Play a sport; challenge a friend; socialise. There\u2019s usually a proper bar too.<\/p>\n
If you\u2019re determined to join a gym-only establishment, you\u2019ll need honesty usually reserved for tax returns and medical forms. Have you ever stuck to a gym habit before? Do you actually enjoy the environment? Even if you attend the classes will you do anything other than linger at the back? <\/p>\n
Fitness itself is cheap. Walking is free. Press-ups cost nothing. Yoga videos exist online. You could go for a run every day. But you probably won\u2019t. This is why I have dogs. They insist on walking, whatever the weather. A sports club does something similar: nudging you into activity without pretending you\u2019ve suddenly become someone else.<\/p>\n
Before rushing into a January membership, think carefully. Look for a social solution, not a contractual one. Over the festive period I\u2019ve been doing exactly that. Go for a sports club membership. By summer you\u2019ll be happier, fitter, and use it more frequently.<\/p>\n
After all, you want fewer pounds on the scales. Not your bank account.<\/p>\n
James Max is a broadcaster on TV and radio. X:\u00a0@thejamesmax<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0