How To Cancel A Gym Membership and What To Do Next
Canceling a gym membership might be the hardest workout (a.k.a. challenge) you have to fight thru since you committed yourself to the gym lifestyle and fell in love with workouts.
It’s actually so frustrating, that even the strongest ones in the gym tend to give up!
But if you know how to avoid the struggle with using the correct methods, you should have no problems with canceling your gym membership. And this is exactly why it is so important for you to consider all of the different options you have when looking to cancel that membership you’re not even using anymore.
So where is the problem?
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Common Problems With Gym Memberships
First of all, I want to say that not all gyms and memberships are the same! Different gyms have different membership terms and some are truly flexible when it comes to what you as a member want and what your rights are.
But there are still countless gyms with absolutely terrible membership plans which are a true nightmare to cancel.
So what is the most common problem with this kind of memberships?
Your inability to cancel them! Plain and simple the contacts are designed so that even when you are not interested in attending specific classes or using the gym at all, they would still receive money from you.
I have to agree that you were the one who agreed to these terms in the first place and therefore you have to take the responsibility. But there is absolutely no doubt that we still have the rights to pull out of this kind of contracts without spending a fortune for nothing.
Best way to cancel a gym membership
The one thing different gyms usually count on is the fact that you simply don’t know the laws that protect your rights. Which means you’ll do whatever it takes to keep yourself out of trouble! Even continue to pay for a membership you are not using and have made yourself clear about it.
In this case, the best and the safest way to resolve the issue is by getting the help of someone, who knows what they are talking about. Yes, I am talking about a lawyer.
There is no doubt that this will cost you something. But some gym memberships cost a lot more than the help you get from a professional. The thing about using a help from a professional is that the gym might just change their mind when they see that you have contacted a lawyer.
Simply because they understand, that this to resolve this issue, they will have to put some work into the process and it might cost them something.
If this doesn’t work, use the help of a lawyer to take it further and you should be able to settle the dustups without spending a fortune.
Of course, if you don’t want to do that, there are some other things you can do.
Alternative ways to cancel a gym membership
The number of different options you have to cancel your gym membership depends on the specifics of your contract. But there are some similarities in different contracts, that give us the opportunities to end the membership whenever you feel like quitting fitness of starting to work out from home.
- One of the things you can do is get a note from the Doctor, that would approve, that you can no longer take on physical activities. A lot of the most popular contract will include a point that says, you are able to cancel the membership if a Doctor recommends you to do so.
- Stop making the monthly payment (This might seem illegal, but I have actually done this to cancel a membership and it works). Of course, it depends on the specifics of the contract, but most of them include a section that says something in the lines of the gym can cancel your membership if you do not make the payments for a certain period of time etc. So all you have to do is stop paying and stop caring about the phone calls they will do for the first couple of weeks.
- Leave the country and go to a better place. Ok, this really is taking the things to an extreme level. But if you have signed an extreme version a gym contract, this might be your only choice.
- It could also be possible to get a friend of yours to attend the gym and different classes under your name until the membership ends and let them play for it. Why would they do that? Maybe because they don’t want to sign a contract on their own name knowing what could happen if something changes.
But the most important question is this!
What will you do after canceling the membership? I hope you are not going back to those old, nasty habits!
Work out without a gym membership when you want
So you now know that you don’t want to sing up for a gym membership, but you still want to work out?
We have some good news for you!
Start with simple, no-equipment workouts you can do at home and combine these with the best cardio exercise ever created – running!
You will soon see that you can actually do amazing workouts at home without committing to a gym membership that becomes a struggle to cancel if you change your mind on fitness or the specific gym.
And if you decide to take the next step with your home workouts, we encourage you to invest in creating a simple home gym. It might seem like a serious thing to consider because you are investing your own money. But you will soon realize, that in the long-term, you are actually saving.
Plus, you have the chance to do your workouts whenever you want which also makes it easier to plan them out and combine with your meals etc.
And our, as well as the experience of so many others, shows that creating a home gym is what makes you work out even more and take it more seriously because you understand what it means to make the investment and keep up with promised you give to yourself.
Tell us, what is your experience with canceling gym memberships and have you considered working out at home?
Leave a comment or contact us to share your story!