“Getting Ripped” at the gym, which is when you develop extremely well defined muscles all over your body, might be the very reason why some people go to the gym in the first place. However, I am not sure anyone would go to a gym just to get “ripped off”. Yet people get ripped off every day. Many rip themselves off. Let’s explain this with something that most in this day and age can relate to. The scary price of petrol. Trust me. This will make a lot of sense very soon.

Petrol is well over $2 per litre now. Whilst everyone is trying to figure out how they can still afford to get to work the service stations are figuring out how they can retain your patronage and (whilst you are there) sell you more stuff.

I went into a service station the other day to buy $20.00 worth of petrol (no point putting in more than that under the circumstances). Let’s say that I was purchasing (roughly) 10 litres. In addition to the petrol I was buying an extra item at $3.20 (a Peanut Slab to treat my blood sugar slump). It was at the point of payment when the cashier told me, “If you spend another 80 cents I can give you a discount on your petrol of 4 cents per litre”. Later, when I had my son in the car, I asked him if that would have been a good deal. Without thinking too hard about it he said, “Probably. I think so”.

What I had said to the cashier at the time went something like this. “Let me see if I understand the bargain you are offering me. If I give you an additional 80 cents, which I really have no reason to spend, you will give me back 40 cents?” The cashier looked at me sheepinshly as I politely declined his invitation.

Now I know we are talking about tiny amounts of money but all it takes is a few extra placements of the decimal point to the right and the lack of value in the proposition put to me by the cashier becomes palpable. Yet how often do we do this to ourselves?

It’s not so hard to get ripped off at the gym. It is simple enough to rip ourselves off. Just kid yourself and try to work out with weights that are too heavy. Your form will suffer, the benefit of the workout will be completely lost, and you will get ragged, tried, and potentially injured in the process. That is just like giving the cashier 80 cents in return for 40 cents. A 100% loss! So, how do you avoid this great misfortune?

It’s simple. You get regular professional assessments of your health and fitness versus where you are at today and where you want to get to. Get a professionally developed programme, follow it, and get it updated when due. This will definitely cost you an hour’s worth of Personal Training every 6-8 weeks or so. But the second you start to wonder about the value of such an investment, ask yourself if you would be willing to give 80 cents to receive 40 cents, $80 to receive $40, $800 to receive $400, $8,000.00 to receive $4,000. Now, go ahead and book the session.