Training at the Gym, Training for Life:

Creating Better Versions of the Self Through Exercise

Abstract
The present study draws on Scott’s (2011) notion of the Re-Inventive Institution and explores
how gym members make sense and give meaning to their exercise regime. Overall, it is argued
that for many participants gym exercise is more than physical training; it is also training for life.
Based on a thematic analysis of 32 semi-structured interviews it is argued that gym workout is a
means to create better versions of the self on mainly three levels. First, gym participants perceive
themselves to be efficient and productive in general. Second, gym training is believed to increase
the control they have over their lives. Third, gym members associate their gym workout with
amplified emotional resilience, believing that fitness workout makes them not only fitter in a
physical sense but also fitter and better equipped in a psychological sense. Surprisingly, a small
group of regular gym users displayed more critical sentiments and distanced themselves from the
images and values the gym stands for. The results of this study can be linked to broader political
discourses on health and fitness that make use of corporate managerial vocabularies and are
based on ideals of rationalization and efficiency.
Keywords: fitness, gyms, Re-Inventive Institutions, Total Institutions, thematic analysis

Introduction
Whether in the basement of a commercial complex, half-hidden between two corner stores, next
to the tube station or on a wide green field in the suburbs, gyms have conquered urban space.
Every European and North American city, and even small towns, seem to have a fitness gym.
Gyms are one of the most pursued leisure places in Western societies and can be said to have
established themselves as part of a white, middle-class culture (Featherstone, 2010; Howson,
2013; Phillips, 2005; Sassatelli, 2010; Shilling, 2005, 2008, 2012; Stebbins, 2009). In the UK,
for example, almost 13% of the UK population is registered as members of a private health and
fitness gym or a publicly-owned fitness facility, with London having the most registered users
(European Health & Fitness Association, 2014).
Fitness gyms vary in location, membership fees and serve different social and economic milieus.
Most urban gyms are located in the city centre and are at their busiest during lunch time and after
work hours. In order to attract customers, most gyms offer more than a plain and functional
working out environment but present themselves as lifestyle or family oriented places.
Depending on the size and the target group, multi-purpose amenities encourage pre- or post-
training activities, for example at their spas and beauty centres or they organize social activities
at the weekend (Stewart, Smith, & Moroney, 2013). As Bryman (2004)notes, “hybrid
consumption”, that is, consumption of several goods and services within one single place, tends
to extend the time spent by the customers there. Consequently, one may think that the more time
gym users spend at their gym, the more they engage with its material and social environment,
and the more they are affected by the same so that the gym becomes more than just a training site
for them.
Methodology

Participants
The data for this study consisted of 32 semi-structured interviews with active gym members
of whom 20 were women and 12 men, all students or working adults, ages 23 to 69.
Respondents were recruited through a combination of personal contacts and snowball
technique/referrals. The snowball technique itself has its limitations, self-selection being the
most significant in the context of this project. The inclusion criteria for interviewees were
minimal: 18 years old or over, English speaking, current gym membership and regular gym
attendance with at least one gym workout session per week. Gym members who frequented
the gym less often than once a week were excluded from this study. Members using the gym
for other than exercise, such as the sauna or the Jacuzzi, were also not included to the data
set.

Ethics
This research project followed the recommended ethical guidelines of the Birkbeck School of
Social Science, History and Philosophy Ethics Committee. All interviewees were afforded
the right to anonymity and confidentiality. Whilst participants’ actual age and occupation are
provided throughout the research report, every participant is given a pseudonym so that their
responses cannot be matched to their personal details by anyone other than the researcher.

Procedure
After establishing initial contact, by phone or email, and setting up a date, time, and location,
interviews were conducted either in the cafeterias of their gyms or at a public place, at the
respondents’ convenience. Each interviewee was provided with a form of consent that
explained the rationale of the study, a confirmation of confidentiality and contact
information. The interview schedule entailed questions about participants’ initial reasons to
join a gym, the impact they considered their gym training had on their everyday lives and
what they liked most about going to the gym.

Results
The results of the analysis revealed three key themes related to participants’ expectations and
motives for exercising at the gym. Participants believed that exercise at the gym grants: a)
more efficiency and productivity, b) a higher sense of control over their lives and c) an
increase of psychological well-being. In addition, there was also a group of respondents who
displayed (self-) critical sentiments towards the gym.
Increasing Efficiency and Productivity
All participants agreed that the gym visit would positively affect the quality and “flow” of
their day. Many talked about how they actually plan their gym visits in order to optimize this
perceived effect.

Being Disciplined and in Control

Gaining Emotional Resilience

Discussion
According to the results of this study, the gym can be said to be a Re-Inventive Institution
first and foremost because of its, what might be called, “spill-over effects”. All respondents
agreed that gym exercise has positive effects on other areas in life. Members expect the gym
to optimize their work performance, their psychological well-being and ultimately their
selves. As Scott (2011) writes, institutions that are concerned with physical appearance,
beauty, fashion and ‘healthiness’ promote ideas and discourse that consume an actor’s
consciousness throughout the day. Hence, one may argue that the impetus on self-discipline,
self-optimization and on “becoming” becomes omnipresent for members’ also outside the
gym.
Ritzer (1983) writes that a society characterized by rationality is one which values efficiency,
predictability, calculability and control over uncertainty and puts a great deal of emphasis on
finding the best or optimum means to any given end. This resonates with the results
presented above. As interviewees state, fitness training at the gym can be considered a means
by which transformation of and control over one’s life is achieved. One of the reasons why
this may the case is that exercise in gyms itself requires disciple, self-surveillance and
ambition. Indeed gym membership usually starts with the diagnostic procedure of a health
check where weight, height, body fat, blood pressure, body mass index, etc., are measured
and compared to what has been established as a scientific norm so that goals for further
training can be identified and changes noticed. This may facilitate an experience of having
control over one’s body and the power to alter. The gym, in this sense, can be said to be a
path to perfection.
Conclusion
This study has shown that the reasons for why people join the gym as an ‘institution without
walls’ are manifold. To invoke Scott (2011), when people join institutions to alter
themselves, it is often that they feel a personal desire and responsibility to create an
optimized self. What participants expect to achieve at the gym is a better version of their
selves in several ways. Firstly, many of the interviewed gym participants hope, and indeed
perceive themselves to be more productive and efficient. Second, they feel they have more
control over their lives when they train at the gym regularly. Third, they associate their gym
workout with increased psychological resilience. It can therefore be said that these people
engage in regular gym training to create a better, fitter and stronger version of themselves,
that enables them to “keep on going”, to master their everyday lives, to cope psychologically
with their stresses and strains.
Important to note, the sample of this study was limited for it consisted of students and
working adults only, that is to say, of people who either sell or prepare to sell their labour
force at the market. It would be interesting to explore how people out of employment such as
retirees and other non-workers make sense of their gym exercise. Tulle and Dorrer’s
(2012) study, for example, reveals that gym participants over 65 years old tend to come to
the gym not only for physical training but also to form social bonds that exceed the
boundaries of the fitness locale. In general, people who have been referred to the gym as a
result of a medical condition might experience the gym differently than participants who
come there for leisure, perhaps more as a compulsory “homework”. In an interesting case
study, Nash (2012) shows that pregnant women do not only use the gym to get fitter for birth
but also, quite paradoxically, to manage anxieties about weight gain. The author shows how
pregnant gym users, more than non-pregnant women, compare the size and shape of their
bellies to those of other pregnant women in aerobics classes. As she writes, the fact that body
related anxieties manifest themselves in the embodied experience of group exercise
challenges research suggesting that prenatal exercise has largely positive effects on mood
and body image. For some of her informants, Nash maintains, pregnancy fitness means a
third shift of work on top of their continuing commitment at home and in paid employment.
For the recruited participants exercise in a gym was obviously an important enough part of
their lives for they volunteered and were interested to talk about fitness in general and their
own fitness practices and histories in particular. It would be worthwhile to look at the
motives of gym members for whom the gym is not that important or who train only
occasionally as this may yield different results. Relatedly, it might be interesting to interview
people who have strong feelings towards the gym because of their negative experiences
there.
In future studies, it would be fruitful to explore to what extent gym-related practices resonate
with broader discourses on health and fitness in a given society. It has been noted that in the
last three decades or so, corporate managerial vocabularies have infiltrated governmental
understandings and handlings of health with ideals of rationalization and efficiency,
customer satisfaction, producer/consumer relations and performance targets (Numerato,
Salvatore, & Fattore, 2012; Tonkens, Bröer, van Sambeek, & van Hassel, 2013). With the
progressive abolishment of the social welfare state in many European countries, health is
increasingly treated as a private responsibility and as something that one can purchase it
might be worth discussing the gym as a social practice ˗ as an element of the
commercialization of health services. Gyms can be said to speak directly to such neoliberal
agendas, which try to increase the number of active and self-reliant citizens and to decrease
the number of those who are dependent on the state and others. When gyms motivate their
members to take responsibility for their own physical strength, they frame health as a feature
of the self that individuals can and should responsibly manage. Taking on responsibility for
one’s health has a normative and moral impetus, too, for lack of health ‘clashes too
uncomfortably with the image of the “good citizen” as someone who actively participates in
social and economic life, makes rational choices and is independent, self-reliant and
responsible’ (Galvin, 2002, p. 107). Comparing and contrasting the results of this study with
contemporary discourses and policies on health would help us to widen our understanding of
not only participants’ motives to do gym exercise but also of the societal functions of gyms.

Acknowledgments
Ceren Doğan is a clinical psychologist and a doctoral student at Birkbeck College,
University of London. She is about to complete her training in psychoanalytic
psychotherapy. Her research interests include the social, cultural and ideological construction
of femininities and masculinities, the (female) body, and the intersection between space and
subjectivities.