Pune: Gym owners in the city have noticed a trend that people mostly join the gym as a New Year resolution and discontinue it after a month or two. Prominent gyms are not affected due to this habit of people but local gyms get severely affected.
Maruti Kale of Hanuman Gym in Yamuna Nagar, Nigdi, told Sakal Times, “Our monthly expense on maintenance of our gym is around Rs 1 lakh. During the New Year, youngsters flock to the gym. However, they lose interest after a few months. This affects our business as these people pay monthly. So, we advertise or pay more attention to training youngsters and kindle interest in them.”
Ankur Vora of Snap Fitness, Akurdi, said, “Every year several people discontinue their gymming, which affects our business. Almost 30 per cent of our business gets affected due to this and it has become a trend now. There is only 30 to 40 per cent of the people, who are dedicated towards their fitness and this makes it difficult for our business to cope up with.”
The prominent gyms of the city are not affected much as they have many branches and new members keep joining them throughout the year. Sagar Dharia, owner of Pehellwaan Gym, said, “We get 100 admissions every month and during New Year, there are over 100 admissions. Of these only 30 per cent of the people continue while the rest leave.”
Dharia added, “Almost 70 per cent of the new admissions are interested in monthly packages while 25 per cent opts for quarterly packages. Only five per cent take yearly or big packages. Those who tend to discontinue are not self-motivated as they join only as a craze, which becomes a huge task for them after few days. This does not affect us largely, as we have several branches spread across Pune and we get a continuous membership.”
Pramod Davkhare, Founder of Nitro Fitness, said these days people are not interested in fitness and it is all about good personality. They do not understand the importance of fitness and that is the reason they discontinue after some months.
He added, “Almost 50 per cent of the people drop out of the gym as they are not self-motivated and self-disciplined. This does not hamper our business but the local gyms suffer losses. Firstly, they do not have good facilities and also, the trainers are not that qualified and people mostly look for low-budget gyms with good quality of infrastructure, which these local gyms do not have.”
