Gold vs. Bally: An Upgrade in My Life

In the last blog, I attempted to define the meaning of life, to explain why we are here and to offer advice on the divine connections we are meant to make in this world. In this blog, I offer advice on gym membership. Let there be no doubt about it: Mark's Musings covers it all.

I've belonged to a couple of different fitness centers in my life, 24 Hour Fitness as well as Bally Total Fitness. Both of these are pretty much alike: Price conscious offerings which compete against each other with an array of membership types, each a bit more confusing than that of the other, hoping to snare couch potatoes into lifting a pen, if not a barbell, and signing that contract. When I started to work at Microsoft, I noticed a Gold's Gym right around the corner, and I tried to be honest with myself: I need to work out, even though it is not the highest desire in my life. My current Bally membership, now dirt-cheap since I made it through the first year, was not going to work for me since it meant a twenty minute ride each way. That excuse, as well as the cost of gas, would be an indisputable, unconquerable reason to bypass the daily workout. If I truly were to get back into any sort of a workout habit, it would require I join this gym which I pass twice each day on my way to and from work. So, with both dedication and remorse, I entered the gym and inquired about membership.

Unlike Bally and 24 Hour Fitness, which truly do seem to be clones of each other based on lowest cost and an industrial feel, Gold's Gym was entirely different from the moment I entered:

• The lobby was truly a lobby, with a fireplace, lounge chairs, flat panel TV and even a guest computer
• Guest towels were freely handed out at the front desk
• Wood---something which resembled mahogany---was the key construction material, abundant throughout the lobby, the workout areas, even the locker rooms. (Yes, the lockers are made of deep, dark routed mahogany, not plywood or metal!)
• Each cardio machine has a personal TV monitor mounted on it, with 40 user selectable channels
• Classes are free, rather than an extra three dollars for each yoga adventure.
• Now the ultimate in decadence: Something called a "SuitMate," a breadmachine-sized device in the locker room into which you place your wet swimsuit which is then squeezed in order to wring out the water! Voila, no more soggy gym bags.

I signed up.

Yes, it is true that you get what you pay for, and Gold's is about twice the price of a comparable membership at Bally. (Maybe even a tad more, but let's keep the math simple and say double the price.) Still, this feels right for me. It's funny, at some earlier point in my life, I probably would have preferred cheap and plain as "more real" to mahogany, but at least for now this feels better: An attempt to do better and to be more as opposed to accepting the lowest common denominator. Maybe this choice is more a statement on myself, or what I have been through this last year, than anything else. I'll ponder that question as I trample away the hours on an elliptical.