How much should you spend on your gym membership
Jul 15, 2024
tl;dr: it's just not about the cost, but also about the people you're surrounded with. If you're well off and spend banknotes on materialistic things, then try cutting down that cost and start spending on gym membership. It'll be worth it in the long run. To put it in numbers 1.5% - 2.5% of your annual income should be sufficient for yearly membership.
Now that we've sent away all the impatient girls and boys. Let's see where it all began. In 2020, when COVID's first wave hit, I was in pretty bad shape and weighed around 105 kg. I decided to shed some weight and joined a nearby gym named Nitrox in my hometown on October 31st 2020. My hometown is a tier 2 city at best, so it's not expensive.
Gym #1 #Nitrox - It cost me 1200Rs/month (~15USD/month). The gym area was small and could accommodate around five people, one more and it'd be too congested. But it was a good starting point for me, I had no prior experience and the gym had one permanent trainer who looked after the gym, trained, etc. As there was no concept of Personal Training(PT) that I knew of, he used to guide me through the exercises and maintained the workout split. The members in that time slot were decent, but not motivated, they did it for the sake of doing it and not enjoying it, this is what I felt. 2 months lost around 20kgs with lots of cardio and a strict diet.
Seems like a victory right? no, it wasn't. As I did not gain much muscle and was in an extreme calorie deficit, moving to Bangalore for my internship hit like a thunderstorm. Irregular diet and minimum exercise increased my weight at a much higher speed. I felt active from inside a bit, but I didn't enjoy going to the gym. It felt like a hassle. Why? becauseof all the cardio and strict diet. Fed up with this I signed up for a gym in Bangalore named OneUpFitness
Gym #2 #OneUpFitness - It cost me 1800Rs/month (~22USD/month). With some experience, I decided to go in Lonewolf mode, with no Personal training and full commitment to myself. Guess how it turned out? Fucking irregular. On the days which I went to the gym, I'd hit the dedicated muscle like hell and not go the next time for the same muscle with the attitude that I killed it last time. Partially my nutrition was also to blame, I bought whey protein but wasn't regular on it. Recovering from the previous workouts was also bad. Okay so at this point the motivation part was solved but what I lacked was discipline.
In search of discipline, I thought what if I spend more on gym membership, then I'd be more disciplined. Right? I'd say kind of. With this approach in mind, I joined one of the top gyms in Bangalore, VOLT Fitness in Indiranagar and Helios Gym in my hometown
Gym #3 #VOLT Fitness #4 Helios Gym - It cost me 3000Rs/month (~36USD/month) per gym. The first question in your mind would be. why two gyms bro? I'm in a flexible hybrid work situation so I spend some time at both places, also some personal commitments have led me to this arrangement, but that's a story for some future blog I guess. So how does spending more money affect my discipline? weird right? but UD, discipline comes from within BLAH BLAH BLAH!! I'd say not entirely.
For building habits, as James Clear says in his book Atomic Habits. There are 4 basic laws, cue: make it obvious, craving: make it attractive, response: make it easy, reward: make it satisfying. And proper habits make you disciplined.
With spending more on membership, I doubled down on the 2nd Law, craving. How? I'm glad you had this question, if not, you'll realise it one day.
When I joined these so-called premium gyms, they were not a sham. Yes, there is a Personal Training culture which affects you mentally, second doubting if you're doing something wrong by not taking PT, but that's fine if you're willing to do what I did. I went to the gym in the morning around 4:30-5 am, there were a handful of people who knew what they were doing, and some were like me trying to turn our life around. Seeing the jacked ones created a craving in my mind, to be one of them. And for others, I wanted to be better than them and prove to them that I'm just built differently. Once you get regular, you start talking to your gym bros, and get to know their stories and what motivates them, they are both financially stable and physically fit. This means they must have done a series of correct things in their life to reach here, soon you'll disciplined enough to be like them because at this point they also respect you for your efforts and you don't want to let them down. That's a fucking vibe.
To put into points:
Expensive gym - top-tier people of the city.
Early morning - disciplined, dedicated folks.
Jacked people - you want to be them both financially and health-wise.
Flabby people - you want to be better than them.
Regular - people start respecting you and not any other people, the fucking educated, top-tier ones.
You get better connections which can come in handy in future.
Yesterday on 14th July, Sunday. One fellow gymrat did a Rowing machine for fucking 30 mins with minimal breaks. That is hands down one of the hardest HIIT exercises out there, 40 minutes later. I'm doing Air-bike with minimal breaks for 15 mins, and I've never done it more than 5 mins in my entire life.
The key is to keep company only with people who uplift you, whose presence calls forth your best.
~ Epictetus
How much should you spend on your gym membership
Jul 15, 2024
tl;dr: it's just not about the cost, but also about the people you're surrounded with. If you're well off and spend banknotes on materialistic things, then try cutting down that cost and start spending on gym membership. It'll be worth it in the long run. To put it in numbers 1.5% - 2.5% of your annual income should be sufficient for yearly membership.
Now that we've sent away all the impatient girls and boys. Let's see where it all began. In 2020, when COVID's first wave hit, I was in pretty bad shape and weighed around 105 kg. I decided to shed some weight and joined a nearby gym named Nitrox in my hometown on October 31st 2020. My hometown is a tier 2 city at best, so it's not expensive.
Gym #1 #Nitrox - It cost me 1200Rs/month (~15USD/month). The gym area was small and could accommodate around five people, one more and it'd be too congested. But it was a good starting point for me, I had no prior experience and the gym had one permanent trainer who looked after the gym, trained, etc. As there was no concept of Personal Training(PT) that I knew of, he used to guide me through the exercises and maintained the workout split. The members in that time slot were decent, but not motivated, they did it for the sake of doing it and not enjoying it, this is what I felt. 2 months lost around 20kgs with lots of cardio and a strict diet.
Seems like a victory right? no, it wasn't. As I did not gain much muscle and was in an extreme calorie deficit, moving to Bangalore for my internship hit like a thunderstorm. Irregular diet and minimum exercise increased my weight at a much higher speed. I felt active from inside a bit, but I didn't enjoy going to the gym. It felt like a hassle. Why? becauseof all the cardio and strict diet. Fed up with this I signed up for a gym in Bangalore named OneUpFitness
Gym #2 #OneUpFitness - It cost me 1800Rs/month (~22USD/month). With some experience, I decided to go in Lonewolf mode, with no Personal training and full commitment to myself. Guess how it turned out? Fucking irregular. On the days which I went to the gym, I'd hit the dedicated muscle like hell and not go the next time for the same muscle with the attitude that I killed it last time. Partially my nutrition was also to blame, I bought whey protein but wasn't regular on it. Recovering from the previous workouts was also bad. Okay so at this point the motivation part was solved but what I lacked was discipline.
In search of discipline, I thought what if I spend more on gym membership, then I'd be more disciplined. Right? I'd say kind of. With this approach in mind, I joined one of the top gyms in Bangalore, VOLT Fitness in Indiranagar and Helios Gym in my hometown
Gym #3 #VOLT Fitness #4 Helios Gym - It cost me 3000Rs/month (~36USD/month) per gym. The first question in your mind would be. why two gyms bro? I'm in a flexible hybrid work situation so I spend some time at both places, also some personal commitments have led me to this arrangement, but that's a story for some future blog I guess. So how does spending more money affect my discipline? weird right? but UD, discipline comes from within BLAH BLAH BLAH!! I'd say not entirely.
For building habits, as James Clear says in his book Atomic Habits. There are 4 basic laws, cue: make it obvious, craving: make it attractive, response: make it easy, reward: make it satisfying. And proper habits make you disciplined.
With spending more on membership, I doubled down on the 2nd Law, craving. How? I'm glad you had this question, if not, you'll realise it one day.
When I joined these so-called premium gyms, they were not a sham. Yes, there is a Personal Training culture which affects you mentally, second doubting if you're doing something wrong by not taking PT, but that's fine if you're willing to do what I did. I went to the gym in the morning around 4:30-5 am, there were a handful of people who knew what they were doing, and some were like me trying to turn our life around. Seeing the jacked ones created a craving in my mind, to be one of them. And for others, I wanted to be better than them and prove to them that I'm just built differently. Once you get regular, you start talking to your gym bros, and get to know their stories and what motivates them, they are both financially stable and physically fit. This means they must have done a series of correct things in their life to reach here, soon you'll disciplined enough to be like them because at this point they also respect you for your efforts and you don't want to let them down. That's a fucking vibe.
To put into points:
Expensive gym - top-tier people of the city.
Early morning - disciplined, dedicated folks.
Jacked people - you want to be them both financially and health-wise.
Flabby people - you want to be better than them.
Regular - people start respecting you and not any other people, the fucking educated, top-tier ones.
You get better connections which can come in handy in future.
Yesterday on 14th July, Sunday. One fellow gymrat did a Rowing machine for fucking 30 mins with minimal breaks. That is hands down one of the hardest HIIT exercises out there, 40 minutes later. I'm doing Air-bike with minimal breaks for 15 mins, and I've never done it more than 5 mins in my entire life.
The key is to keep company only with people who uplift you, whose presence calls forth your best.
~ Epictetus