This past Sunday, the Times had a great article on new year's newbies at the gym. Indeed, January is my least favorite month of the year to work out.

I am not opposed to newbies per se. In April of 1996, I was a newbie too. The difference is, when I first started going to the gym, I went out of my way to use the equipment properly, let other people work in when necessary, and follow general protocol.

If you are reading a book or magazine with small print while you are on the cross trainer, you are not working out hard enough to justify a trip to the gym. Those people are wasting space. Same with people who talk on the cell phones while on equipment, or yap to the person on the piece of equipment next to them.

An unscientific survey of newbies yesterday revealed that almost 40% of new faces fell into this delinquent newbie category, reading books or magazines, chatting, or just, in one case, doing absolutely nothing (the person was sitting on a stationary bike and not pedaling while simply staring up at the ceiling).

Thankfully, by late February or so, most of these clueless types realize that they are just not cut out for this resolution, leaving the knowledgeable regulars behind. I actually like that my gym has very little attitude and nobody cares how much you can lift or what you are wearing. That's good. But New York Sports Clubs, with its apparent focus on numbers, gets too many of these people who never should have joined in the first place.