Observations on home gyms
I am in the sports department of John Lewis with a friend, trying to buy a cricket bat. But they are out of cricket bats. In fact, they have no cricket equipment at all. A third of the floor space is taken up with treadmills, rowing machines and exercise bikes. "This is all about keeping fit," my friend protests. "What's that got to do with sport?"
You can see what he meant. Despite the best efforts of Freddie Flintoff, cricket gear accounts for less than 1 per cent of the sports equipment market, while fitness kit has a huge 23 per cent, second only to that eternal generator of accessories, golf (35 per cent).
Like health-club operators, home-gym manufacturers should be endlessly grateful for the much-maligned academic subject of sports science, which has categorised exercise into different types, told us about muscles we never knew we had, and invented different ways of exercising them, from leg curls to ab crunches.
To make working out alone less tedious, home gyms raise feedback to a fetish. Punchballs are shaped like people and light up when you hit them. Rowing machines give you virtual rivals to race against. Exercise bikes tell you your speed, distance, pulse rate and "theoretical calorie burn". Your home gym is your personal trainer: it sets your "desired target area", feels your pain and then congratulates you on your performance.
The language of fitness is also cuddlier now. Instead of building your torso or pumping your biceps, you "trim", "tone", "tighten" and "firm up". The trendier equipment, such as ellipticals (like walking with skis) and inflatable Swiss balls, offers a low-impact, all-body workout. Fitness First, the private gym and fitness-equipment company, claims to be "for every body", allowing you to "be yourself, only better". This sounds civilised and unmacho - although it also means the well-toned body is no longer a goal we strive towards, but a norm we are urged to maintain.
American political scientist Robert Putnam has argued that "social capital" - the value of communal solidarity - has declined in the face of privatised individualism. The title of his book, Bowling Alone, refers to a dramatic fall in the number of organised leagues in one of America's most popular participation sports, ten-pin bowling. Is something similar happening here? Participation in team sports has been declining since the 1980s - partly because there are fewer young people and partly because professionals in their twenties and thirties prefer to run, swim or go to the gym.
But market figures measure sales, not use. According to a 2003 NOP poll, a quarter of home-fitness equipment is only used once, and a tenth is never even unwrapped. People seem to buy it in haste and repent at (sedentary) leisure. As a skinflint and gymophobe I can recommend a cheaper alternative which, according to the latest issue of Social Trends, is still the most popular sporting activity of all. It's called "walking".
Joe Moran lectures at Liverpool John Moores University
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