It seems like the New Year resolution of getting fit no longer means simply enrolling in a gym.
This year, many people have decided to skip the traditional gym environment and switch over to alternative fitness regimes. These include running, cycling, zumba and even the exhausting bootcamps.
Until last year, several gyms reported a 15 to 20 per cent increase in memberships at the beginning of the year.
This year, the trend is changing, gym owners and personal trainers say. They note that fewer people have joined at the start of the year in many gyms across the city.
There has also been an increase in the number of gyms and fitness centres in the city and this could also be a contributing factor to fewer memberships, they say.
“In an area where we had only one gym for a two kilometre radius, there are now two gyms, a yoga centre, a holistic wellness centre that offers fitness training and also two dance studios,” S. Sasi Kumar, a personal trainer with a gym in Alwarpet says.
“For many people, fitness has become more than just spending an hour a day running on the treadmill or lifting weights,” he says, adding that he has cut down his workout time to go running and swimming this year.
Fitness centres say that while the beginning-of-the year enrolments seem to have come down, they are seeing an overall increase in enrolments.
P. Santosh Kumar, a trainer at Leap Wellness says, “Nowadays, people are more realistic and fitness is no longer just a New Year resolution that is forgotten two weeks into the year.”
Homeward ho, said tipplers With the popular watering holes in the city hiking their prices on New Year's eve, revellers changed tack and decided to party at home.
The next obvious destinations were the outlets of the government-run Tamil Nadu State Marketing Corporation (TASMAC) outlets and its elite branches in malls. Serpentine queues welcomed those who went to buy liquor at the elite liquor shop in Alsa Mall.
By the time those at the far end of the queue reached the counter, stocks were almost empty and many a potential reveller returned empty-handed and dispirited
M. Swaroop, a lawyer who has spent New Year at home for the last two years, says: “It is quiet and we can drink while listening to our favourite songs. How many pubs would let you do that?”
A number of other reasons, including the steep cover prices and partying on one’s own terms in the confines of the house, were cited by those who decided to party at home with their liquor stashes. Divya, a young professional, says one does not have to worry about getting caught by police. “Getting together with close friends, with no fear of the police stopping us is certainly a good idea,” she says.
(Reporting by Kavita Kishore and Udhav Naig)
