The bizarre exercise-cum-mating ritual that is the gym is at once demeaning and distracting. Let’s face it, finishing your 20 minutes on the treadmill is nearly impossible if you are ogling — or being ogled by — the hottie on the rowing machine, or if you are painfully aware that your behind is jiggling like James Brown.
Gyms are expensive torture chambers, where only those who are already fit and beautiful hang out. You queue for ages to use machines that are nothing more than hamster wheels for humans. And that queueing time puts a serious dent in your schedule.
It is perhaps no surprise then that many women are opting for women-only gyms. ”No men, no mirrors,” as one franchise owner puts it. And these venues, already a hit in other parts of the world, are seeing a steady increase in clientele across South Africa.
Gym franchises Shapes for Women (SFW) and Contours Express recently completed a merger that will see their combined turnover reach R6million this year. South Africa-based SFW, with 37 women-owned franchises nationally, also recently opened a branch in Kuwait.
SFW, like most other women’s gyms, cut out the add-ons that come with a standard gym. In conventional gyms you pay for squash courts and a pool even if you never use them. Most women’s gyms use a simple circuit system. Hydraulic equipment, designed for the female body shape and size, is interspersed with areas for floor routines or rest sessions. A typical workout is 30 minutes around the circuit.
”There is such a need for women to do exercise without men,” says Ria Botha, owner of a SFW gym in Vanderbijlpark. ”They feel more comfortable without men staring at them.”
The former policewoman says there are a number of reasons that women-only gyms are so popular.
The lame excuse for a fashion show is out: ”There is no dress code; it’s comfortable,” says Botha. So, yes, you can wear that frumpy old T-shirt and not fret about whether your Puma yoga shorts are too last season.
Botha says that with the circuit set-up, instructors in the centre constantly monitor and assist clients. This keeps them motivated and so they see real results.
Monthly assessments include body mass index measurements, says Botha, and eating plans and healthy recipes are also on offer. The venues are typically smaller, more intimate spaces.
But isn’t it a risk for a company to halve its potential clientele? US-based Curves for Women, one of the first companies to open women-only gyms, states that it is the world’s largest fitness franchise and the 10th-largest of all franchise companies in the world. The company has 10 000 gyms in more than 44 countries.
Busisiwe Radebe, a journalist from Jo’burg and a Curves member, says she prefers a women-only gym. ”At other gyms, people go there to show off; they loaf around. The circuit makes you work, you have to, there’s nothing else to do.” And it’s quick, she says, a 30-minute circuit and you are done.
Barry Owen, director of SFW, says the decision to start a women-only gym franchise made business sense.
In the standard gym setting women are self-conscious about exercising in front of not only men but other women as well, he says.
”They are very conscious of being out of shape and working out in front of a 21-year-old who hasn’t had three kids,” he says. ”But women come to our gyms as they are.”
While some might argue that women-only gyms discriminate against men, Owen says his company is ”perfectly happy to say that we’re for women only. Women have had the rough end of the stick … and men have more than enough places to work out. They can go anywhere.”
