Here’s the problem with starting an exercise regimen: You typically pay big up front for the gym membership or equipment, then try to motivate yourself to use it enough to make that payment worthwhile. But recouping a sunk cost isn’t much of a motivator, so you end up both out of shape and out of pocket.
Two recent Harvard graduates turned the model on its head. They’ve started Gym-Pact, where customers agree up front to pay only for missing scheduled workouts, accepting a financial penalty if they don’t stick to their own workout plans. From the Boston Globe:
The concept arose from Zhang’s behavioral economics class at Harvard, where professor Sendhil Mullainathan taught that people are more motivated by immediate consequences than by future possibilities. Zhang and Oberhofer translated that principle to workout motivation. If missing a workout cost people money, they’d be more motivated to stick with it, they thought.
Gym-Pact buys bulk memberships at gyms, then gives them away for free in exchange for a commitment to go to the gym four times a week. Fail to do so and you pay Gym-Pact $25 per week. These “motivational fees” exceed Gym-Pact’s cost for the memberships. So it’s a profitable venture based on our predictable failure to live up to workout ambitions. For now, Zhang and Oberhofer are funneling all profit into a financial aid fund.
Would a membership like this motivate you to work out more?
Photo: lu_lu
