I just noticed that Steve Nash Sports Club in downtown Vancouver posted a job ad on Craigslist today. In the ad, they wrote:

Our team of personal trainers are some of the best in the industry!

I wanted to let that comment slide, but I can’t help myself and I must call them out on it. Precisely none of the best trainers in the industry are working at Steve Nash Sports Club, or any other public gym. The best personal trainers in Vancouver, or any other city, work at private personal training studios.

If you watch my YouTube videos, you already know that I can’t stand gyms and health clubs. I hate just about every gym or health club I’ve ever been to. Pretty much everything about traditional gyms and health clubs just drives me up the wall.

Prior to a couple of weeks ago, I hadn’t exercised at a health club in nearly a year, preferring to do my workouts outdoors or at home with minimal equipment such as the TRX Suspension Trainer and the Ripcords.

But not having access to any other equipment (particularly free weights), I had started to get a bit bored with my workouts, so a couple of weeks ago I decided to get a membership at a local health club called the Steve Nash Sports Club.

The Steve Nash Sports Club is the newest, largest, nicest, and most expensive health club in Vancouver. I figured that if I was going to be able to tolerate a gym, it would be the Steve Nash Sports Club. Certainly it had to be better than the dirtiest, dumpiest, busiest, stuffiest, most miserable health club I’ve ever had the misfortune of being a member at.

Two weeks into my membership, I’ve been to the gym less than ten times and I’ve already had enough of that place. Too many people, not enough benches, lockers are always in use, way too much cardio equipment, limited windows (the windows they do have are all in the cardio area), and lots of weirdos including the crazy bodybuilders wearing their tapered clown pants, fanny packs, and bandanas. I just got back from canceling my membership.

Thanks to my staunch refusal to ever sign into a long-term gym contract, I only need to give the Steve Nash Sports Club 30 days notice to cancel my membership. Imagine how frustrated I’d be right now if I had signed into a 1 or 2 year contract. Ouch. Yet the majority of gym-goers will agree to one of those long-term contracts only to realize two weeks later that they can’t stand the gym and don’t want to go anymore.

So please heed my advice. If you’re going to get a gym membership somewhere, go month-to-month right from the beginning. Sure, you’ll pay a bit more per month, but it will be well worth the piece of mind, and chances are the month-to-month membership will eventually save you a ton of money and frustration when you realize that you don’t want the membership any longer and are able to quickly cancel it.