In the Gym: Motives, Meaning and Moral Careers

Abstract

Drawing upon ethnographic data, this article analyses 'vocabularies of motive' amongst individuals who work out at a private health club in the Greater Manchester area (UK). The article draws a distinction between motives for starting at a gym and motives for continuing, and analyses each separately. It also seeks to draw out, in the latter case, the many motives which conflict with a stereotypical view of 'working out' found in some academic accounts. Working out is not only an instrumental means of cultivating valued bodily attributes, it is argued, nor are its attractions necessarily all 'bodily' (at least narrowly defined) in nature.