The rise of the gym and health club has been unstoppable in
recent years. There’s now a multi-million pound industry focused
around state of the art gyms & health clubs across the globe.
And yet, we have never been as unfit or unhealthy as we are
today. W hilst gyms have done a huge amount to encourage people
to get fitter and are now more accessible than ever, I am
convinced that they can sometimes do more harm than good in the
battle to “keep fit”. Before you dismiss this idea, read on and
see what you think about the following drawbacks of gyms…

I have seen so many people use gym machines incorrectly that
they are not only training the muscles incorrectly, they are
also sometimes putting themselves at greater risk of sustaining
an injury. Walk into any gym and you won’t have to look far to
find someone using a machine incorrectly. Whilst most gyms
require people to have an induction prior to training, this is
usually a quick walk round the gym pointing out the machines
with the odd random demonstration. There’s very little follow-up
and monitoring or feedback to ensure people are performing
exercises correctly every time they come to the gym.

The very fact that there are often 20 or more machines in the
gym leads people to believe they should actually use most if not
all of them at some point in their programme, thinking they
should train all the muscles they possibly can or just out of
curiosity. This is a misconception. I often train clients with
nothing more than the correctly-sized stability ball, some
dumbbells and a mat. In a gym, I may use the cable machines but
I will rarely put a client on a fixed resistance machine. Such
machines can cause the development of faulty recruitment
patterns and muscle imbalances and will most likely de-train
crucial stabiliser muscles required for functional movement
patterns. I have touched on this several times before so won’t
go into detail here.

The equation of having to go to the gym to get fit is a personal
bugbear. How many people do you know who say “Oh I really need
to get fit but just don’t seem to have time to get to the gym”?
My response to this would be “Why do you need to go the gym to
get fit?” There is so much you can do outside of the gym to
improve your fitness and you don’t need tons of equipment to do
it. A simple solution – pull on a pair of trainers and go for a
walk or a jog. In the time it’s taken you to get to the gym, get
changed and get going on the treadmill, it’s been 20 minutes and
you could already have gone out for a 20 minute walk and be back
at home on the sofa (or doing your ab exercises on the living
room floor!). Incorporating more activity into your daily life
is also a step in the right direction and can be easily achieved
with a bit of thought and planning.

It is also hugely discouraging when people go to the gym
religiously and yet see little or no progress. This is mostly
due to lack of knowledge about what they should actually be
doing in the gym – how often to go, what exercises to do, how
hard to train, how many sets, how many reps, how long to rest
for, when to go, what to eat and when. It is not surprising that
people don’t know what to do when they get there – it’s one
reason why I believe that people should view a personal trainer
as a way of getting the most value out of their gym membership
rather than an unnecessary additional expense.

And for people who do make progress at the gym – lose weight,
bulk up and get to where they want to be – that’s great. But
going on holiday for a couple of weeks or just missing the odd
session here or there means they easily get out of the routine
of going regularly and start to lose their fitness. Because of
their previous success, they now associate getting fit with
going to the gym and if they can’t get to the gym, feel they
can’t get fit again until they do. This also works the other way
- if people don’t like going to the gym or find it has never
really helped them get fit despite going regularly, they can
develop negative perceptions of getting fit by associating it
with going to the gym and feel despairing that they’re never
going to reach their goals.

But what’s the alternative? Well, how about spending the money
you’d spend on gym membership on a personal trainer?

By working with a trainer, you can guarantee you are following
the right programme to achieve your goals. More conveniently
your trainer can often visit you at home and bring any equipment
needed and they can help you plan & increase your daily activity
levels to improve your overall lifestyle without ever setting
foot in a gym.

This doesn’t mean you have to use a trainer every week for the
rest of your life but it’s great to have someone who can update
your programme, give you a boost every now and then and keep you
on track, once you’ve got reached your initial goals.

In the long term, this is a much more sustainable approach to
improving and maintaining your fitness levels but you’ll never
again be able to use the excuse of not having time to go to the
gym!

Lea Woodward
http://www.articlesbase.com/fitness-articles/the-gym-friend-or-foe-1420.html


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