If fitness worked like healthcare: Trainers get paid the same per session no matter how long or how good it is. The best-paid ones do 6-minute sessions and have the worst outcomes. The only way to compare gyms is a star rating based on surveys the gyms fill out about themselves. Have a quick question for your trainer? You can't call. Book a session and pay the copay to ask. Membership is $20,000 a year. There's also a $7,000 deductible, so for the first half of the year you still pay every time you walk in. Your membership comes through your job. They make all the decisions, but the cost still comes out of your paycheck. Want to pay cash for one quick workout? Could be $200, could be $2000. You can't find out until after you do the workout. Before you can do the workout your trainer recommends, a guy in Omaha who has never exercised decides whether it's "athletically necessary." He always says no. Your trainer spends every lunch break appealing, unpaid. You have to get hurt doing three workouts your trainer didn't want you doing before you can do the one they recommended. Trainers spend twice as much time logging your workouts as training you, also unpaid. Technically you can skip the membership. Then you trip on a curb and lose your house.