Why we pay for the gym but stay at home: what an experiment with 61 thousand participants showed

Buying a gym membership is easier than turning exercise into a habit. Scientists who studied the behavior of more than 61 thousand clients of an American fitness network came to this, in general, painfully recognizable conclusion.

They tested dozens of ways to encourage people to exercise regularly: reminders, activity scheduling, small cash bonuses, emails, and even free audiobooks. Some of the methods actually increased attendance, but only a few retained a stable effect after the end of the experiment, writes about this Nature.

It’s important to clarify: the study is not new, it was published in December 2021, not “recently.” But his findings are not outdated, because the problem has not gone away: millions of people every year buy memberships with the sincere intention of starting a new sporting life, and then finance other people’s treadmills for months by their absence.

How the study was conducted

The project involved 61,293 clients of the 24 Hour Fitness network in the United States. 30 researchers from 15 American universities worked on the experiment. They’ve created 54 digital programs spanning four weeks, ranging from simple reminders to micro-reward schemes and social messaging.

Scientists recorded real visits to gyms, and not participants’ answers to the question “well, have you already started a new life?” They then assessed the results during the program and four weeks after its completion.

What really helped

During the four-week experiment, 45% of the programs tested significantly increased the number of weekly gym visits. The increase ranged from 9% to 27% compared to the control group.

One of the simplest schemes looked like this: a person planned a workout in advance, received a reminder message half an hour before it, and for attending he was awarded a small bonus, equivalent to about $0.22. This system increased training frequency by about 9%.

Gave the best result another idea: If a participant missed a scheduled workout, they were offered an additional bonus of about $0.09 for returning for the next session. This approach increased traffic by 27%. The researchers say it was especially important to prevent one skip from turning into a chain of exercise refusals.

Why does the subscription not work on its own?

The subscription creates intention, but does not solve the daily problem of choice. At the moment when you need to get ready, go, change clothes and study, the sofa, fatigue, work, heat or the usual “I’ll start on Monday” often turn out to be stronger than a beautiful goal.

Research shows that people benefit not from abstract promises to themselves, but from very specific mechanisms: a pre-arranged time, a short reminder, a minimal reward and a clear plan for returning after missing a time.

Simply put, the problem is not always weak will. Sometimes a person simply leaves the decision about training for the most inconvenient moment of the day, when the brain is already busy with a hundred other tasks and votes for peace, food and TV series.

But the long-term effect was weaker

After completion of the program, lasting changes that could be measured after four weeks were maintained in only 8% of interventions. This is an important part of the study: it is relatively easy to motivate a person in the short term, but it is much more difficult to get him to continue going to the gym without reminders, letters and small bonuses.

Moreover, among the programs that worked during the experiment, stronger effects were more likely to persist later. In other words, if a person actually started exercising more often within a month, the chances of sticking with the habit were higher, but there was still no guarantee.

What can be applied without the application and cash bonus

The study’s conclusion is quite practical. You don’t have to turn going to the gym into an accounting report with a bonus for each approach. But you can use the same principles:

• set a specific day and time for training, and not keep in mind the vague “I’ll go this week”;
• set a reminder 30–60 minutes before leaving;
• prepare your sports bag in advance;
• after missing, do not wait for the next Monday, but immediately reschedule the lesson to the next possible day;
• keep your first workouts short so that going to the gym doesn’t feel like a two-hour punishment.

The main conclusion of the study is simple: habits are built not from a heroic attitude, but from repeated little things. A subscription can be a useful start, but it does not replace a calendar, reminders, and a decision made in advance. And perhaps the most valuable rule here sounds almost too simple: if you missed a workout, don’t cancel the whole project, just go to the next one.

Sources: Nature, University of Pennsylvania. The material is for informational purposes only and does not replace the advice of a doctor or trainer if you have injuries, chronic diseases or restrictions on physical activity.

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