Musings of a Potential Gym Rat

In the past few years, I’ve been trying to be more intentional about exercise. Previously, most of my exercise came from chasing after buses and all the forced exercise Hong Kong foists upon me (night walks after my bus stopped running, cliff-steep stairs, lugging Ikea furniture home). While those are all good workouts, they are not quite consistent enough for a good exercise regimen. 

I have actually thought about signing up at a gym for as long as I’ve been in Hong Kong, but I never seem to be successful. Hong Kong gyms have a certain reputation. You might be familiar with the California Fitness debacle. While not all gyms close down while customers still have thousands of dollars in credit, they do seem to be known for misleading sales tactics, very expensive membership fees, and not being very customer friendly. 

When I was new in Hong Kong, some of my coworkers told me that there was a special promotion at the nearby gym, so a bunch of them signed up. It was only $100 for four months! That was crazily good, so I headed over to begin my new fitness journey. The salesman informed me that I couldn’t get that deal because I was not yet a permanent resident BUT he could give me $400 for one month! I am not the best at math, but that didn’t seem like a very good deal.

My skepticism was sealed when he informed me that I was incredibly out of shape and would need one-on-one training sessions or else doom and gloom! While that sounded very serious, I decided stairs would have to do. 

A few years later, I tried to sign up for one of the government gyms. No frills, cheap, and no personal trainers! The only downside is actually signing up. You have to take a three-hour gym introduction class before you can use the fitness rooms, but I couldn’t manage to do it. I partly blame it on the difficulty of getting in (I have signed up multiple times over the years and have never made it on the list) and partly on my ADD tendencies. After trying for a bit, I would forget for a year. Then I try again, fail again, and forget again. A vicious cycle. 

So now I am resigned to hiking, tennis (when I can find a friend to book a court; yet another challenge), and walks. 

And now, I found a new gym! This week I was taking one of my regular night walks and came across the elderly fitness corner in the park. I may not be elderly, but I was also the only one in the park and the equipment looked lonely, so I decided to try it out. It may not give me as rigorous of a workout as an elliptical machine (my preferred gym equipment), but the price is right. Besides, there is a gym across the street from the park. I can watch the true gym rats on their treadmills and congratulate myself on how much money I am saving.  

The best things in life are free.