Gym sales people

I've just joined a gym last weekend, LA Fitness. Joining a gym for me was quite a complicated process, because there are no real good, convenient gyms around home or on my way home, as there were when I lived in Bellevue. So it took me more than an year to convince myself that I had to do it even if it wasn't as convenient. So I joined one that is about 12 minutes from home by car.

When you join a gym you start with people trying to convince you that it's the best gym there is and that it's very convenient and easy for you to use. Then they schedule you for an introductory "personal training section" where they would set my goals and give me a review of the gym. But what they do is set you up to paying for personal training sessions. And they do it in ingenious ways:

- They go through your goals and try to convince you that they know the best ways to achieve those goals
- Then they take you around for a quick "training" that is aimed at making you feel like you are weak and have to work a lot, and, especially, that they can help you by pointing out the correct techniques, sets of exercises and around to help you not to get hurt.
- Then they try to sell you packages of personal training sessions and keep trying to make you say that the price is too inconvenient so that they can do the "evil" move of lowering the price so that you feel like now you have to buy it (thanks Wally for the Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion (Collins Business Essentials) book)

So I ran away from all this and just joined the gym. The upcoming weeks, with Passover, my aunt being here for visit, then my birthday, are going to be busy. I don't want to add more scheduled events any time soon. And, yes, those personal training sessions are expensive.