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Being physically fit and healthy has become necessary and a priority in the contemporary times. Fitness should not only be understood and viewed as getting a fit body through some form of physical activity but also contributing to the mental health and a general better way of life. Gyms are considered to be a popular emerging fitness space or a center. Going to a gym has thus become a part of our everyday life and a routinized activity of our day. According to Roberta Sassatelli (2010), fitness gyms are a special breed of gyms: they are typically unisex, non-competitive environments aimed at providing recreational exercise to boost physical form and well-being. (Sassatelli 2010: 1).
Fitness as a social phenomenon pervades all the chasms of sociality. Gyms are central to a much broader fitness culture, comprising a variety of commodities: news-stands are full of magazines on physical exercise, health, and beauty that promote an increasingly nuanced vision of the fit body and offer advice about exercises and diet that may help in achieving it (Ibid.: 1). There is an effective role of mass media in presenting the popular ideas of being fit and healthy which include healthy food habits and particular diets, different forms of body types, various types of exercises to do, trending gym clothes i.e. the gym look, new gym memberships etc. Each one of us try to shape our perceptions on fitness and look for motivation to go to the gyms through this information available on social media
According to Sassatelli (2010), todays gyms have at least three distinctive characteristics:
- Firstly, they are increasingly truly integrated centers for physical exercise (Ibid.: 1)
- Second, there are a variety of individual needs and the variety of exercise techniques but there is a common factor, reflected in the dual meaning of the term fitness (Ibid.). It connotes training in the gym ( keeping fit ) [as well as] the physical state that this training is intended to produce ( being fit, in form ) (Ibid.).
- Thirdly, the pleasantness of physical activity is presented as a fundamental aspect of fitness (Ibid.), such that more importance is given to pleasure and satisfaction rather than focusing solely on physical effort.
Fitness gyms are understood as spaces where we can perform physical exercises and keep ourselves fit. However, gyms can be seen as more than a fitness space and also act as a social space. Going to a gym could be due to various reasons and motivations wherein a gym member would see the gym as a space for interactions and forming new relationships. The gyms are distinguishable from social clubs because a set of specific tasks are to be carried out, with sociability being important as either a by-product or a facilitator of those tasks (Sassatelli 2015: 238). Hence, going to a gym is a form of serious leisure which allows the development of a project and to a degree a career within ones own free time (Ibid.).
Gym going is not motivated by a single factor but rather individuals find many reasons and motivations to keep up with their physical well-being. The gym space and its inhabitations can affect an individual’s choice of going to a particular gym. Thus, the exercise spaces serve as microcosms of larger social reality which becomes evident through their spatial and temporal manifestations. This research will look at many sub aspects of how a gym can act as a social space, which primarily focuses to understand the inhabitations and interactions within the gym-exercise space. How is a gym spatially arranged and if it affects the performance of the individuals in the gym is important to look at. Gender and its relation to how we study and understand a gym will suggest many meanings attached to the fitness culture. Our performance and how we embody ourselves in a closed exercise space becomes interesting to study because it will reflect on the presentation of ourselves in everyday life. The relationships we form and the interactions that take place in a gym contributes to it being a social space.
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