Almost nobody quits a gym because the training was too hard. They quit because of how the first three weeks feel.
We have watched a few thousand people start training here, and the pattern barely varies. Whoever is still coming in week four is usually still coming in month six. Most of the people who stop, stop before week three.
And it is almost never the training. Here is what actually happens.
You walk into a room where everybody else appears to know what they are doing. Some of them are strong, all of them look occupied, and nobody is going to tell you that they were exactly where you are eighteen months ago. So you use the two machines whose purpose is obvious, do twenty minutes on a treadmill, and leave feeling like you have not done anything. Repeat that three times and the decision to stop is not really a decision at all.
Four things fix it, and three of them are free.
Start with somebody, and start on the same day. This is why our beginners programme is a fixed group of twelve who begin together with one coach and nobody joining halfway. Everybody in the room is on the first day of the same thing, so there is nobody to feel watched by. Two thirds of those groups are still training six months later. People who join on their own manage about a quarter.
Have a written plan on a piece of paper. Not an idea of what you might do, a plan: these movements, this many sets, these days. Every new member here gets two sessions with a trainer and leaves with one, because the alternative is copying whatever the largest person in the room is doing, which is how people get hurt.
Go twice a week, not five times. Everybody who decides to change their life goes five times in week one, is in pain for week two and stops in week three. Twice a week for a year beats five times a week for a fortnight by such a margin that it is not worth discussing. If you want a third day, add it in month two.
And come at a quiet hour while you are learning. Eleven in the morning, two in the afternoon, after ten at night. Six to eight in the evening is the fullest the floor gets, and learning a new movement in a crowd is harder than it needs to be. On the ladies floor, half past four is the quiet hour.
One last thing that nobody says out loud. Nobody in the gym is looking at you. Everybody is either counting, resting, or thinking about themselves. It took me about a year of training to work that out and it would have saved me the first three months.
