LIFESTYLE: While a large number of those who join gyms as a New Year's resolutiondo not last the pace, the fitness industry is thriving and firms fromoverseas are eyeing up the Republic's market

Nobody ever makes a new year's resolution to just stop being so fit and healthy. Instead, it is the time of year when just filling out a health club membership form can seem like a step in the right direction. Step two may involve a chequebook or credit card. Step three, if we have any energy left, is the part where we actually use what we have paid for.

"One of the first things people put on their list is that they have to get fit," says Mr Roger Davinson, manager of David Lloyd Riverview Club in Dublin.

"The guilty consciences start growing after Christmas, with the result that January, February and March would be our busiest time for recruiting new members. And for existing members, usage goes up 40 per cent."

But for most seasonal gym-joiners, the new year will not be the beginning of a life-long, or even year-long, love affair with regular adrenalin-producing exercise.

We're much more likely to follow the example of Renée Zellweger in Bridget Jones's Diary, panting and sweating as we fall off the exercise bike during our first and final workout, trying to avert our eyes from the full-length wall mirrors.

If the annual rush to the nearest treadmill begins in January, it ends pretty soon after that.

"Older members come back in January but by about February they will have gone, or at least go from coming twice a week to only once a week," says Ms Lillian Griffith, operations manager at Iveagh Fitness Club in Christchurch, Dublin.

The club has a year-round waiting list, so applicants will typically have to wait three to four weeks before they can start burning Christmas calories. The new members disappear, too - "although, of course, they will still be members", Ms Griffith notes.

The average yearly retention of members for the private health club industry is 60 to 70 per cent, says Mr Killian Fisher, chief executive of the Institute of Leisure and Amenity Management (ILAM).

"About 30 to 40 per cent of new members drop out," he estimates.

Ms Emma Fitzpatrick, a membership adviser at Equinox Fitness in Sandymount, Dublin, agrees that it can be difficult to retain active members.

"People have all the excuses in the world, they say they don't have time. But if they have time to watch Eastenders, they have time to exercise too," she says.

Most people come back eventually, she adds, looking for "that feel-good factor", or perhaps just to get their money's worth. As most health and fitness clubs will charge a substantial joining fee, applying to a club in a moment of temporary New Year's enthusiasm can be a costly experiment.

Equinox, part of the Westwood group of leisure facilities, has a joining fee of €120 (£94.50) and a monthly subscription of €50, which includes fitness assessments and access to classes.

At Iveagh, the joining fee is €127 or €63.50 for off-peak membership, with off-peak hours defined as 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekdays as well as all day Saturday and Sunday. Members can join for three or six months, but rates must be paid up-front, while yearly members can pay by direct debit. Monthly rates thereafter are €63.50 for peak and €45 for off-peak members.

Outside Dublin, prices will typically ease. At Motions Fitness Centre in Leixlip, Co Kildare, membership costs €170 for three months, €315 for six months and €475 for a year, and the centre has the advantage of charging no additional joining fee.

The wider the range of facilities available, the larger the initial fee is likely to be. At David Lloyd Riverview Club, which includes a swimming pool and racquet sports courts, joining fees range from €381 to €1,524 for families, with monthly subscriptions between €66 for senior citizens and €163 for families.

There are also discounts for students and couples, as well as off-peak membership fees.

"Off-peak is the bigger growth area at the moment, because of the different kinds of shift patterns that people now work," says Mr Davinson.

Some health and fitness clubs will also offer group rates if large numbers of employees from one company join at the same time, although the practice of corporations paying for their employees' membership is not as popular here as it has been in the US.

Mr Davinson has seen a decrease in the number of employers offering club membership as part of an overall package.

"Five years ago, about 20 to 25 per cent of our members would have been corporate members, paid for by their employers, but they have tended to cut back on that side.

"If we target large companies with over 1,000 workers, we may offer a discounted joining fee, but it is very rare now that employers would stump up the cash to pay or subsidise a bulk number of employees," he says.

Here, paying for health club membership is more of an executive perk than an overall personnel strategy for improving performance but, over the past decade, US-based companies such as Pacific Bell, Bank of America and Coca-Cola all reported economic benefits after implementing extensive employee fitness programmes.

"All the research has shown that paying for employees' fitness reduces absenteeism and improves morale and productivity," says Mr Gar Holohan, chief executive of Holohan Leisure, a consultancy firm in the leisure management field.

Saving on personnel costs in an uncertain economic climate may be one reason for the reduction in corporate clients at health clubs; another is that larger companies, such as Bank of Ireland and Intel, have simply adopted a different approach to encouraging employees' fitness.

"Instead of paying for membership they are just building their own kind of mini-facilities in the basement - a pool or a gym," Mr Davinson explains. "It is more cost-effective in the long term to invest in putting facilities on-site and have employees coming in early and staying late to work out instead of disappearing off to a health club."

While these in-house gyms may deter workers from joining private health clubs, Mr Davinson is not unduly concerned by the competition. "The workplace gyms would tend to be functional and wouldn't necessarily have social facilities - restaurants and bars - as some health clubs do."

The market is far from saturated here, according to Mr Holohan, offering opportunities to major British chains to expand their business.

David Lloyd Leisure, the UK's largest chain of health and fitness clubs with more than 200,000 members, bought the Riverview club in Dublin in 2000 and has looked at developing possible sites in Cork. Three other major gym chains with branches in Northern Ireland - Fitness First, LA Fitness and Living Well - are considering expansion into the Republic.

Although there are much higher levels of participation among British adults in fitness clubs, the clubs that opened here have found it easy to build up a core membership.

"People have been surprised by the huge potential for business here. The clubs that do open here mature very quickly, perhaps because we don't have the same public authority provision that they do in the UK," says Mr Holohan.

Both Mr Holohan, who has worked with Meath County Council on facilities in Navan, and Mr Fisher at ILAM point to new government grants and lottery funding that will increase the number of local authority complexes around the State.

Being able to use public fitness centres and swimming pools on a pay-as-you-use basis makes them an attractive alternative to health club membership, especially for "guilty conscience" applicants whose motivation to keep on pedalling, spinning, pumping, rowing, stretching, lunging or salsa dancing fades before the ink on their membership cards runs dry.