5 Gym Membership Alternatives You Should Try

Let’s be honest; gym memberships in this economy? With this exchange rate? Please, rest.

Your landlord just increased rent, garri is threatening to be classified as a luxury item, and your bank sends you “debit alert” like love letters. But don’t worry, you don’t need to enter one fancy fitness center smelling like testosterone and unwashed socks just to stay in shape.

Here are 5 solid gym membership alternatives that’ll have you sweating without spending.

1. Trekking to Work

Why pay ₦35k for treadmill access when Lagos will gladly offer you treadroad for free?

Thanks to traffic, scarcity of keke, and bolt drivers with PhD in cancelling ride requests during surge, most of us are already walking long distances. Take that as cardio. It’s one of the best gym membership alternatives.

Trek with purpose. Overtake other pedestrians. Power walk past your ex’s street.
Bonus points if you’re carrying a laptop bag and your office shoes are making that “kokokoko” noise on pavement.

READ ALSO: 10 Beginner Exercises For Your Fitness Journey

2. Insomnia Zumba

Can’t sleep because of heat, heartbreak, or NEPA’s nonsense? Turn on Ayra Starr or Burna Boy and dance your sorrows away at 1:47am.

One minute you’re doing “gbese,” next thing you’re sweating like you’re about to be evicted from Big Brother’s house. Who needs a Zumba instructor when your Spotify DJ is already playing “Unavailable” on loop?

Just pray your neighbours don’t report you to the estate WhatsApp group.

3. Jumping Danfo

Jumping in and out of danfo is not for the faint-hearted. It’s peak strength training and it keeps your reflexes sharp. You haven’t truly known agility until you’ve chased a moving bus while holding hot puffpuff and exact change.

Pull-ups? Please. Try hanging on to the door of a danfo with one hand while trying not to fall on a stranger’s lap with the other. Olympic athletes could never.

If you survive Oshodi in rush hour, you’ve already done CrossFit.

RELATED: Top 5 Exercises To Lose Weight Fast

4. Domestic Combat Training

Every time you argue with NEPA over your prepaid meter or try to fix your gen by force, you’re doing strength and endurance training. 

Lifting jerrycans of fuel? Biceps.
Shouting “I’ve been disconnected for two days!” to a disinterested PHCN staff? Cardio.
Climbing a ladder to “help the electrician” because you don’t want to pay full price? Core and upper body strength.

You’re welcome!

5. Market-Day Marathon

If you’ve ever gone to Yaba, Balogun, Oyingbo, or Mile 12 market, you’ve done a triathlon.

• You walk.
• You dodge wheelbarrows.
• You climb pedestrian bridges (Stairmaster has got nothing on you!).
• You lunge when the woman beside you tries to price tomatoes out of your mouth.

Leg day no pass like this, tbh. By the time you get home, you’re sweating, broke, and strangely proud.

Honourable Mentions:

• Bathing with cold water in Harmattan – Muscle shock therapy
  
• Arguing with Keke riders – Improves stamina and lung capacity
  
• Running from debtors/landlords – HIIT training with real consequences
  

You don’t need a gym membership to stay fit in Nigeria. This country is already doing personal training for free. You just need to show up and breathe through the madness.

Stay strong. Stay sweaty. And remember, sapa may be real, but so is your six-pack-in-progress.

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