Smaller Gyms Help Exercise Social Skills

“When it comes to health clubs, do you prefer the enormous, multilevel variety where you can retain your anonymity even after years of blood, sweat and towels, or do you opt for the small mom-and-pop ‘Cheers’-type gym where everybody knows your name? A friend says she'll only join the behemoth kind because ‘I don't want to talk to anyone who sees the kind of grotesque faces I make in there unless I'm sleeping with them. And even then, I'm kind of self-conscious.’ A tad too much information, but I understand her point. Others say the larger gyms are better for just getting in there, getting the job done and going home. Got it. But for me, the punier of the pair also offers a second, indisputable health benefit: human contact.”