Find the gym for you

From a walk in the Foothills with your kids to a personalized workout at a spa-like studio, the Treasure Valley offers many ways to have fun, feel better in your clothes and stay healthy, with activities to fit every budget.

Despite all the hype about working out and getting fit, more than one-third of Americans just don’t do it or don’t do it long enough to make it stick. Treasure Valley YMCAs, along with counterparts nationwide, are working together to lure the untapped legions of couch potatoes, or "health seekers," as the YMCAs call them, into taking small steps toward fitness by making the facilities more inviting to people who aren’t comfortable in a gym. They even have a name for the effort: the Gulick Project, named after a YMCA pioneer.

A big chunk of the population avoids going to the gym — despite the fact that the Treasure Valley offers scores of choices, from Fitness 19 to Gold’s Gym and more. Many people think they must first be fit, or that they don’t have time for hour-long classes that leave them exhausted. Or they may simply be wary of the unknown.

The Treasure Valley YMCAs are experimenting with how to get people to start an exercise habit. At the Downtown YMCA in Boise, officials have tried a tactic involving the mirrors that face treadmills and other cardiac equipment.

"We have taken butcher paper and covered the mirrors up," said David Duro, vice president and chief operations officer at the Treasure Valley Family YMCA. "And then we wrote on the butcher paper, ‘Do you like the mirrors?’ ‘Do you like the mirrors covered up?’ ‘How do you feel about that?’ "

The answers covered the gamut, he said. "The people who are probably the most comfortable looking at themselves like the mirrors," he said. The rest, perhaps not as fit, didn’t like the mirrors. And so, a compromise. "We’ve got some places that are pretty open and mirrored and other exercise areas that are private and have no mirror," he said.

At the West YMCA, what used to be a glassed-in fishbowl of a room where everyone walking by could watch group workouts has changed. Now, barriers have made what goes on behind them more private.

Other YMCA changes:

- Hiring people with regular bodies, not just the super fit.
- Listening to what people want. Not everyone wants to run 5 miles three days a week.
- Holding nonexercise events, such as book clubs or pancake breakfasts, to get people through the door.

The YMCAs are far from the only fitness clubs trying to tap a new market. "The fitness industry is going to great lengths to work at inclusion," said Jay Bates, executive consultant with Synergy Fitness Group, a consulting firm that works closely with area gyms, including Gold’s Gyms.

To attract more women, Gold’s Gyms in the Valley now have women-only workout areas, Bates said. Cross-training workouts that let runners, for instance, exercise muscle groups that otherwise might go unused, are popular.

"It is like putting an adult back in the kids’ playground," Bates said. "There is certainly a recent energy that has gone into that kind of training. It is exciting and fun. People want to have fun when they train."

Fitness advocates have set themselves a lofty goal. "Six weeks doesn’t do much for anyone," Duro said. "It’s a lifetime we want."

If you choose to join a gym, you can find one to fit just about every budget or fitness need. Check out our list of some of the options in the Treasure Valley.