I heard on the radio where the host says that how can it be that studies show that more people than ever before go to a gym, more people than every before are more educated on diet and nutrition and make concerted efforts to eat better, yet more people than every before are fat and out of shape.
The first thing I thought, from my decades long experience at the various gyms, is that sure, more people go to gyms, it's more crowded than ever before, but few are doing anything productive. The vast majority of their time, I would say 85%, is spent just sitting on equipment. Sitting there watching the TV and on their cell phone. I thought I saw it all when I saw a guy watching a movie on his cell while actually doing leg presses on the machine. Then I saw a guy on an ab machine where the pad goes across your chest actually texting while doing 1/4 inch crunches.
Of all the obstacles involved for an ordinary person to stay consistent with working out: the time available, the motivation, the energy, the physical discomfort that comes with exertion; by far for me, my biggest obstacle is other people in the gym. The vast majority that just take up space and hog equipment. The people who go there just to say they go there and that they work out. It's not like the old days when there was no a/c, no TVs, no comfortable machines, just dingy, dark rooms with loud clanking of metal -- not an inviting place for the normal Joe. So, in those days only the true believers were there. The ones who actually wanted to workout and improve themselves. It was normal and welcomed to share a piece of equipment so that you can have a training partner to help motivate and spot you for that exercise.
I know people get sick of old people reminiscing but there were some things better back in the day.
