Is the gym good for fitness?

There is no absolute good or bad, it all depends on personal needs and usage methods - it is extremely cost-effective for those who have clear training goals and know how to use venue equipment. For those who find it troublesome and have unclear goals, it will most likely be a waste of money.

I trained my buttocks at home for most of the past two years, and at most I used a 20kg dumbbell to do hip thrusts. The weight couldn't be adjusted for a long time. Later, I got a fitness card downstairs and used the Smith rack to press weights. In less than half a year, my hip circumference increased by 3cm. The force trajectory of the fixed equipment is preset, so it is not easy for novices to get out of shape when they first start practicing, such as high pull-downs and seated chest presses. It is much faster than pulling on elastic bands or lifting mineral water bottles at home to find the feeling of force. Sometimes I feel lazy and don’t want to move, so I make an appointment with my regular partner and go straight to the gym after get off work. After changing my clothes, I warm up and start training. It is much better than lying on the sofa at home and watching short videos for two hours. Occasionally, if you are stuck in the wrong exercise, the veteran or the patrol coach next to you can easily adjust the grip distance and change your stance. It is more effective than watching dozens of fitness videos for a long time. When you reach exhaustion, the person next to you will lend a hand to help you lift the barbell, and you will feel completely safe.

But there are quite a few people around me who cheat on gyms, and there are also many people who call it a "pure IQ tax". My colleague suddenly got a three-year card at the beginning of last year. His home is 4 subway stops away from the gym, and he was so tired from get off work that he didn’t even want to take a detour. He went there less than 8 times throughout the year, and the average trip was almost 300 yuan. Chun Chun paid the gym’s operating expenses. There are also some novices who are surrounded by personal trainers as soon as they enter the PUA. They say that you have round shoulders and hunched knees, and that you will get injured sooner or later if you don’t buy classes. There are also those who just start practicing blindly. They watch others deadlift heavy weights and follow suit. Their waists are bent and they lie down for half a month. What they originally wanted to do is to recuperate their injuries, but the gain outweighs the gain. If you don’t have any need to build muscle or improve your strength, but you just want to move and sweat every day, forcing yourself to go to a stuffy gym to lift irons, you will easily resist exercise. It is not as comfortable as running two laps downstairs at home and dancing in the square with the aunties for half an hour.

To put it bluntly, the gym is like a high-end tool box. It is very handy when you want to do delicate work or large projects. If you just want to tighten a screw, you don't have to spend a lot of money to buy a box of tools that you won't use. Whether you want to go or not, first think clearly about what you want, and then calculate the time cost of going back and forth and whether you can persist. It is much more reliable than listening to others saying "good" or "bad".