When I walk through the streets of New York, I pass strange rooms where people are doing strange things.

　　Some folks are attached to madly spinning wheels. Others are straining to keep metal bars from crushing them. Still others jump around in unison as someone yells at them.

　　It all looks like something out of Dante's Inferno. And the most amazing thing is that people are paying to endure these trials.

　　The strange rooms are gyms, and I've been an on-again, off-again member of the cult over the years. My wife, Clarissa, and I have also purchased some of these machines of torture for home use.

　　I did a back-of-the-envelope calculation for our spending on gyms and fitness equipment over the past 27 years. It came to $8,500. Pretty big money considering there have been numerous years when we spent nothing.

　　Clarissa drove me nuts back in 1982 when she purchased a $79 six-month membership at a gym and went exactly three times before it expired. She explained to me that she didn't feel comfortable going to the gym until she got in better shape.

　　Isn't that the point of working out？ 'Women will understand,' she told me the other day.

　　Some 41 million Americans are health club members, more than twice as many as in the late 1980s, according to the International Health, Racquet and Sportsclub Association. Historically, 12% of memberships are signed in January, the most of any month, as Americans vow to knock off their holiday flab.

　　I've come full circle on the gym question during my life. They're worth it if you use them. But you can keep in good shape spending a lot less money.