Premium is a red flag

Most of what sells as premium in India is really just mainstream or mid-tier anywhere else. Hotels, gyms, restaurants, coffee, phone cases. You name it and you’re paying an unnecessary premium for something that’s quite ubiquitous and affordable anywhere else in the world. Gyms included. Mine among them.

So much so that anyone calling something premium is an immediate red flag for me. It helps if someone just describes what they have.

Let’s take my gym: we have clean toilets, one coach for every four to six clients, and you never have to wait for a machine or weights. Pragmatic programming, so you make the most of your training hour.

Some people call us safe and friendly.

Which isn’t a feature. It’s a serious bug in most of our society. But you can wear what you want and train at our gym.

Let’s take my online service: you show up for four to six hours a week. We will help you train towards push ups, pistol squats, better hip mobility, strong shoulders and upper back. Stick with the program and you’ll do more work in an hour without panting. You just have to be patient. And work through those first three weeks of learning new things and enduring some discomfort.

Let’s take my equipment: built for the mid-sized Indian frame, not scaled down from an American one. Some of the designs are unusual, and that’s deliberate. They let you perform an exercise comfortably even if your body has constraints. Carefully picked parts, heavy gauge pipes and tubes, welded clean. Simple and obvious to use. Cushions, pads and cables swap out or clean with minimum fuss.

You may not think that’s value for money. You be the judge. But you know exactly what you’re getting before you pay.

Most of the time the word premium is used in India by people asking you to pay more for something they can’t explain.

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