Who believes in a public gymnasia?

[Cleita]

I recently joined a gym on doctor's orders. As a gym hater from high school, I reluctantly participated at first. It occurred to me during a yoga class this week that everyone should have access to gymnasiums as part of access to health care.

It's not such a new idea. Gymnasia, an invention of the Greeks, were available to all. The Romans, who were pretty fascist about everything else, provided public baths, that had gymnasia, to the general population because they knew that keeping the population healthy and clean and by also providing fresh water to them reduced the chances of plague.

Would a gymnasium in each population center that was free to everyone be something we should aspire to? Of course there would be swimming pools. Since there are municipal swimming pools in most towns, couldn't a gym complex be added to it?

[IndyOp]

1. I had never thought of this before, but when I think of the cost of the

current epidemic of obesity vs. the cost of public gymnasia -- I think the gyms would be less expensive and very good in terms of giving people something to do besides watching TV and giving people a public meeting place - a base for community.

:hi:

[roody]

2. Great idea.

[Ellen Forradalom]

3. That's what the Parks & Recreation Department should be doing

Some cities deliver better than others.

The hard part would be to get the population at large to use the facilities, to treat the facilities well, and to support the cost of their upkeep. A gym which has fallen into disrepair or which has garnered a bad reputation may as well not exist.

[cannabis_flower]

4. Perhaps there should be...

some small fees associated with services of using the gym, maybe charging a very minimum entrance fee - a dollar or less, would be reasonable and offering memberships of $5 to $15 a month might make public gyms even pay for themselves. Or instead of any membership fees, the gym could offset its cost by charging a small fee for towel usage, massages, VIP locker room or other services and letting the entrance be free.

I remember when I was a kid my mom used to carpool us with another lady to a neighboring town for swimming lessons at their public pool for a quarter a lesson - this was even cheap for the early 70's.

[noamnety]

5. I am a bit opposed to the idea.

There is something very wrong in the idea of getting in a car and driving to a place where you can exercise - instead of just going for a walk, or doing basic exercises in your house - many of which can be done without large expensive equipment.

As a culture, we tend to drive when we could walk, we hire other people to clear our driveways and mow our lawns or grow and transport our food - if we did it ourselves, that would take care of our exercise needs. This idea of needing to go to a place to use our bodies because we are so sedentary in our day to day lives ... it's a sign that we aren't living right.

I would rather see the millions in dollars that communities would spend in tax dollars on fitness center construction spent to take care of people living in poverty. The rest of us, excluding those with physical disabilities, can just go for a walk, or lift weights at home - lift cans of food or bags of dried beans, if need be. Those who are homeless or going hungry don't have other free options they can take advantage of, if the community diverts resources from them for luxuries for working and middle class. For them, it's a matter of survival. For most of the rest of us, it's a matter of personal choices. Maybe if I don't go to a gym, I'll be less likely to exercise, but that's my own issue.

If we had infinite resources, then sure, that'd be great. But we don't. That money comes from other programs, and it boils down to which services are you willing to cut so you can work out in a high tech facility instead of in your living room, or in your vegetable garden.

[Cleita]

10. Hi, the big problem with your approach is not having trained physical

exercise professionals show you the most effective way to get that exercise without straining muscles, which can do greater damage if you do it wrong, especially with people with disabilities and heart problems. Of course we should take care of the homeless and poor too, but they also would benefit health wise from this as well once they are housed, fed and situated.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

6. Some communities have them in a rudimentary way

Early in the 1980s, I briefly lived in an inner suburb of Minneapolis where they had turned a disused school into a community gym. You could go there and swim for free as long as you had proof of residency, and I took my first ever aerobics class there for, I think, $10.

A number of towns in Oregon have municipal swimming pools, too. They charge a dollar or two per visit and sell "season passes."

[annabanana]

7. I believe there have been public gymnasia in England for awhile.

Does anyone else remember a brit-com called "Brittas' Empire"? The setting was, I believe, a public spa.

[mwooldri]

8. They're not free.

There are plenty of municipal swimming pools, gyms, sports facilities but they're not free by any means.

e.g. my home village of Cranleigh has a leisure centre. You can go swim there for £3.25 a pop or have a monthly swim membership for £18 a month. If you want the gym it costs more... £37 a month gets you everything they have to offer. The facilities are owned by the borough council but are privately managed.

The setting for the Brittas Empire - Whitbury New Town Leisure Centre - is pretty similar to Cranleigh Leisure Centre, though Cranleigh Leisure Centre is successful, unlike Whitbury New Town Leisure Centre.

Compare it to the Y in Greensboro... they want to charge $54 a month for a single adult but have drastically discounted rates for multiple person memberships. IMO Greensboro Y is a better deal than Cranleigh Leisure Centre.

[nemo137]

9. I think it could be done by parks districts

The one in my home town already runs sports leagues, pools, fitness classes and the like, so why not build a public gym insntead of a new clubhouse for the golf course?