Joining the gym is easy, making training a habit is much less so. The problem isn’t necessarily laziness: often we overestimate our future constancy and we underestimate how difficult it will be to find time and energy to train. A study conducted in Montreal found that members planned to train about three times a week, but ended up going just more than once. Also the Subscription cost may contribute to the paradox: convinced that we attend often, we choose formulas that seem convenient, but which end up costing us much more for each workout actually carried out. These results include psychological, organizational, behavioral factors and tell the story of the gap between what we promise ourselves when we sign up and what we actually manage to do.
The main causes of abandonment: studies on consistency
When we sign a contract at the gym, we often imagine an ideal routine: three workouts a week, respected schedules and constant progress. But forecasts made in a moment of enthusiasm do not always take into account unexpected events and daily fatigue.
This is demonstrated by a 2015 study by economist Jean-Denis Garon, in which the data of members of a network of gyms in Montreal were analyzed, comparing planned visits with those actually made. On average people expected to exercise 3.04 times per weekbut they went to the gym only 1.39 times. Less than 9% had more than three weekly visits. Optimism, therefore, did not just concern a few particularly ambitious members: it was a widespread phenomenon in the sample.
This mechanism is related to difficulty predicting one’s future behavior. When we plan workouts, we imagine having the same motivation even after a busy day at work. When it comes time to go to the gym, however, conditions have changed and the couch suddenly becomes more inviting.
The present weighs more than future benefits
Working out requires immediate effort, while many benefits of physical activity, such as improving fitness and reducing some health risks, accumulate over time. It is a situation in which present gratification can prevail over a future advantage. In behavioral economics, this phenomenon is connected with the so-called present biasthat is, the tendency to give more weight to what we feel or achieve now compared to what we might achieve later. It doesn’t mean we don’t really want to get better: it means that the value of that goal can lose steam when we face the concrete cost of the action. Say “I’ll be training from Monday” it is a decision; packing your bag, going out at a specific time and showing up at the gym is a behavior. Between the two there is a space in which tiredness, commitments and procrastination can fit.
How come we continue to pay for the gym even if we don’t go
The paradox of the unused subscription also affects how we choose to spend our money. If we plan to go to the gym often, one Fixed monthly rate seems convenient. If we don’t frequent much, the cost of each single workout becomes much higher than we imagined. Based on data from 7,752 members of three US gyms, economists Stefano DellaVigna and Ulrike Malmendier published the study Paying not to go to the gym: Those who chose a monthly pass with a rate above $70 attended on average 4.3 times per month. The actual cost thus exceeded 17 dollars per visit, although a ten-entry booklet at the price of 100 dollars, significantly cheaper. According to the authors, members gave up on average potential savings of around $600 over the course of their stay.
The researchers have identified, among the possible explanations, theexcessive confidence in one’s future ability to train and to maintain control over their decisions. In fact, prepayment does not guarantee that we will actually go to the gym: it simply makes it easier to convince ourselves, when signing up, that we will.
The solution is to build a routine, not wait for motivation
If the problem was just a lack of motivation, it would be enough to find it every week. In fact, research suggests that frequency and regularity of behavior are also important. In 2020, Matthew Rand and colleagues from the University of Sheffield analyzed twelve months of logins from 1,726 new members to a fitness center organization in the United Kingdom. The percentage of people who attended at least once a month went from 100% initial al 50% after six monthsuntil 22% at the twelfth month. Average attendance dropped from 7.48 visits in the first month to 0.92 in the last.
The study also found that dating more often in the first three months and keep the day, time and place stable of workouts were factors associated with increased frequency in the fourth trimester. It doesn’t prove that a routine guarantees success, but it indicates a concrete strategy: choose in advance when to go, for example on Tuesdays and Thursdays after work, and try to stick to that schedule. Even a short workout can help build a habit more than an ambitious program that you end up skipping often. At the beginning, the goal is not to train as much as possible, but to find a rhythm that you can maintain over time.
