Keith Watanabe * NET 2.0

Sports gyms in Japan are quite expensive compared to those in the states.  Worse yet, the equipment is not very good or the places can end up too small.  Sometimes you can end up waiting for long periods, unable to get equipment.  Roppongi's Tipness is by far the worst because it's small, stinky and has so little equipment.  Yet the place gets tons of people and feels very claustrophobic.

I have the All Tokyo membership to Tipness along with a separate towel option.  The cost goes all the way up to 14000-en, or near $130/month!  That's over $100 compared to a typical US membership.  In America, if you get a $30 membership, you could go twice a week and it'll be considered a deal.  Here, it's kinda like a buffet: you want to get your money's worth for the amount you pay.

So the way you have to think of your membership is the number of times you're able to hit the gym per month.  I think if you're frugal when it comes to the gym, you can bring a number like 14000-en/month down significantly.  For example, if you want to spend 1000-en/time, you would have to hit the gym at least 14 times a month.  That's a little over 3 times per week.  A good number is attempting to hit the gym about 4 times a week.  That allows you to get in about 16 times per month.  That'll bring your cost down to less than 1000-en/time.

A stupid but frugal side benefit of hitting the gym that number of times is saving on cost for water and soap.  Yeah, I'm cheap but these things come to mind, especially considering that a lot of people I speak to tend to believe that gyms are overpriced.