Free Gym Membership

Gym membership can cost a pretty penny as we’ve discussed before on this site. Yes, doing a workout at home is good, and free trials at gyms can help, but what if you want the chance of a bit more time at the gym, but can’t afford the membership fees? What options do you have then?

Are you over weight?
If you are more than just a few pounds overweight then it may well be worth going along to see your doctor. Sounds a little odd I know, but these days, surgerys are not just offering pills and potions to help get you healthy. Some of them are also helping people in other ways with free or reduced membership to gyms and slimming clubs on prescription. This varies from area to area, and within each area from surgery to surgery, and also, different doctors seem to have different criteria that they work on as to who is eligible, but you’ll certainly lose nothing from asking if it’s available to you.

Do you have a loyalty card?
An even more odd question when we’re talking about gym memberships you might think, but not necessarily.

If you have a nectar card, you could choose to save your points up and use them on some fitness equipment, or a pass to use the gym. For 500 points you can get a 1 day pass for up to 2 people at Cannon Health Clubs. 1,500 points will get you a 5 day pass for up to 2 people and 3,000* points will get you a 10 day pass for 1 person including two 30 minute personal training sessions.

If you carry and use a Tesco Club card, you could save your points up and swap them for deals tokens which are worth four times the value of a regular club card voucher (i.e. £2.50 worth of club card vouchers is worth £10 of deals tokens).

Deals tokens can be swapped for a variety of things, and one option for their use is as payment for membership to an LA fitness centre. You can use them as full or part payment, so even if you don’t have enough to cover the whole cost of your membership, you could pay for it in part at least. If you are currently a member, you’ll need to wait till your membership expires in order to use deals tokens for the next year’s membership. Normal rules of membership apply.

Another place you can use your deals tokens is to purchase annual membership or for your joining fee at a Virgin Active Health Club. (Formally they were called Holmes Place.). Not all Virgin Health club’s accept deals tokens however, so do make sure you check on the Club Card Website before you save for this to make sure your local Club is involved.

Are you on Benefits?
Some Gyms will offer reduced membership fee’s if you are in receipt of certain benefits, so it’s worth asking when you are looking into gym’s to see if you might be entitled to this. Generally the smaller independent Gyms seem to be the ones that are more likely to offer this, but ask regardless of where you go. Remember, if you don’t ask, you don’t get, and you will never lose out for just asking.

*This is currently discounted to 1,500 points until 20th Feb 2008.

Full details about Tesco Clubcards Points