Throughout the past 10 years, I have
been a member of one health club or another. My serial gym-joining
habit has a familiar pattern: I sign up in a flurry of positivity,
thrill even, about the prospect of using all those heavy-duty
machines and the fragranced body creams and fluffy towels supplied
in the changing rooms. I plan to use the club regularly and picture
myself relaxing afterwards with a fruit smoothie in the organic
cafe.
Then, about two weeks later, the novelty wears off. In fact,
throughout this entire gym-joining decade I have walked through the
doors of said fitness emporiums no more than a handful of times a
year. A pitifully poor show for a fitness writer.
I'm not excercise-shy per se, but finally, with a sigh of
relief, I have accepted that gyms are not for me. I have cancelled
my latest membership contract and will not be seeking a
replacement. I did this partly due to the realisation that not only
was I wasting money with the monthly direct debit I donate to the
gym's coffers, I was also frittering precious time. The last gym I
joined was a 15-minute drive from my home. With the time it takes
to get changed beforehand and shower afterwards, it was almost an
hour gobbled from my day before I did any exercise at all.
But there were other reasons: I find the gym environment sterile
and far from motivational; I feel self-conscious surrounded by
mirrors and super-toned workout fanatics; and I could not bear the
competitive workout syndrome in which the person on the next
exercise bike would eye up my monitor and try to exceed the pace at
which I pedalled. Gym classes left me exasperated by their
choreographed content and repetition. And while I can run for an
hour outside, I could not manage more than five minutes on a
treadmill without getting bored.
Of course, there are many to whom the gym is perfectly suited. I
have friends who gasp at my condemnation of it and who thrive on
their structured routine of thrice-weekly yogalates classes and
weight-training sessions. There are some who have even drawn
parallels between gym culture and religion, and I see their point.
To many who work out in them regularly, gyms have become a
sanctuary where they can practise a belief system that leaves them
euphoric and that positively affects their entire lives.
Personally, though, I cannot fathom this cultish appeal - and I am
not, it seems, alone.
Throughout the '90s and early 2000s, the growth in gym chains
was colossal. In 2003, their popularity peaked, with 8.7 million of
us becoming members. But in June 2006, the accountancy firm
Deloittes reported the first decline in the number of those joining
up - a 53,500 drop in new members at 470 private health clubs
around the UK, despite subscription fees plummeting by 17%.
Although the fitness industry portrays this blip as temporary,
there are no figures to confirm that those losses have been
recuperated or that the membership of gyms and health clubs is on
the rise again. The profits and shares of many clubs have seen an
unfavourable downturn in the last couple of years - a key reason
why gyms are slashing their fees.
So what, if anything, are gym dropouts doing instead?
Hearteningly, the downward slide in gym appeal has seen a
corresponding rise in people switching to outdoor exercise and
extreme challenges. Running, for instance, is experiencing a boom
far in excess of its last peak during the 1980s - when people used
to call it "jogging" - with an estimated 4 million current
enthusiasts and around 90,000 scrambling for half as many available
places in the London Marathon each year. More people are entering
triathlons and adventure races - such as Ace Races, which introduce
elements such as kayaking and rope work - and green spaces are
packed with everyone from tai chi practitioners and inline skaters
to groups of circuit trainers and people trying obscure sports such
as grassboarding (skateboarding on grass, sometimes known as
mountainboarding). There is a growing acknowledgement that fitness
does not have to be delivered in a pre-packaged gym form and that,
with appropriate direction and enough gusto, the great outdoors can
become all the gym you need at a fraction of the hassle and
cost.
When you excercise outdoors, your skin is kissed by the breeze,
rather than having the moisture sucked out of it by gurgling air
conditioners. There is exposure to real, natural daylight that has
untold benefits for mind and body - not least the fact that it
boosts your mood and vitamin D stores - that you simply don't get
with artificially lit exercise studios. And there is an element of
unpredictability that not only prevents you from getting bored, but
helps you burn more calories. Countless studies have shown that
running outdoors on undulating ground and changing surfaces uses
far more energy than slapping the soles of your trainers on the
conveyor belt of a treadmill. Sports such as football, softball and
basketball require the body to move in ways that recruit muscles
such as those in your trunk or outer and inner legs, which you
would struggle to target specifically when doing gym exercises.
Even the weather can make your workout more worthwhile. Add wind
resistance to a bicycle ride, for example, and your calorie-burning
shoots up as you pedal to overcome it.
For me, though, the biggest advantage of exercising outside is
that I crave being active in a way I never experienced when I was a
gym member. And, now I no longer compartmentalise my exercise into
timed sessions, I have learned how to integrate activity into the
rest of my life. For example, I started running with my son in his
pushchair and I now take the dog for a run rather than a walk, and
power-walk up escalators.
Indoors, my focus was always on the computerised screen in front
of my nose telling me I had not yet worked hard enough to burn off
the calories in an apple. Outdoors, I absorb my surroundings and
the time just whizzes by. I run, I cycle or I walk, often alone,
but never feeling as isolated as I did in a gym studio bursting at
the seams.
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This finding may
partially account for the increasing prevalence of asthma and
allergies in children in the last 30 years 
