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10 weird gym facts

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The gym is pretty dull, right? Wrong. Check out these 10 gym statistics to find out why people really go the gym and how genetics might be the reason why we can’t make it through a workout. Trust us, read this article – we’ll unveil a whole new side of the gym to you.

The size of your bank balance influences your gym habits

The healthcare charity Nuffield Health found that people who earned big incomes were likely to go to the gym more than those gym members on low incomes. The study of 1,600 participants found that people on less than $25,000 (+/- R250,000) a year went to the gym for an hour a week, while those earning big bucks went to the gym on average for three hours per week.

People use the gym to pick up dates

Although most of us probably look our worst at the gym, a new study commissioned by Kettler found that of the 2 000 participants who took part in the study a whopping 50% of the gym goers only go the gym to check out the opposite sex or meet with friends. Almost a third of those participants also admitted that they never worked up a sweat at the gym.  

Gym goers eat more chocolate

According to Market Research World, those people who go to the gym are, strangely, thought to be 18% more likely to indulge in chocolate bars.  If you’re guilty of eating lots of chocolate make sure you are eating the right foods before and after your workout.

Genetics can make you hate the gym

Researchers at Iowa State University found that people’s ability to withstand the pain and exertion of exercise could be up to 50% genetically influenced. For those people with low ventilatory thresholds exercise caused their moods to drop and they were more likely to stop working out earlier than those people with high ventilatory thresholds.

Romance at the gym

If you want to find 'The One', stop wasting time writing and rewriting your online dating profile and instead head to the gym. A study conducted by Nuffield Health found that of their 2 000 participants, 10.5% of members actually live with someone they met at the gym.

Redundant gym memberships

Gym memberships don’t come cheap, which is why, in the U.S., health club industry revenue reached $21.4 billion (+/- R210 billion) in 2011. Yet despite the expense it is thought that 80 % of those Americans who actually have a gym membership do not use the gym.

The number of people who have a gym membership

Sometimes it feels as though everyone you know has a gym membership, but how true is that? Well apparently around four and half million adults in the United Kingdom have a gym membership, whilst in American it is estimated that 45 million adults have a gym membership or are members of a health club.

The number of times people use the gym in a week

If you’re fed up of feeling guilty for not going to the gym enough, compare the number of times you go compared to the average. According to Fitness For Weightloss people on average tend to go to the gym twice a week.  Does that make you feel better or worse about the number of times you work out at your gym?

Post-Christmas memberships

We all know that after overindulging at Christmas most of us go on a health kick and the stats reflect this. Apparently 12% of all gym members sign up to gyms in January, yet these memberships seem to be short-lived and, according to the Fitness Industry Association, after just 24 weeks most people have quit or stopped attending.

People lie about going to the gym

This is perhaps one of the most shocking of all our shocking gym statistics and it is that 13 per cent of the 2 000 people who took part in a study commissioned by Kettler said that when they say they go to the gym they actually go somewhere else. We wonder where these devious fitness dodgers go instead.

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