A recent study showed that 4.5 million people in the UK hold a gym membership - from the local leisure centre or council run gym to state of the art health clubs - but only 2.7 percent regularly use their membership card to improve their fitness and health.

Regular exercise in this case is a visit to their health club or gym at least twice a week, a figure that falls below the levels or exercise recommended by the World Health Organisation (WHO), the American College of Sports Medicine (ASCM) and the UK government who, between them, advice people to stay fit and healthy with at least 3 to 5 sessions of exercise by week.

At 2.7 percent that means approx 121,500 of the UK population exercise in a gym or health club at least twice a week - suggesting that the over 4 million gym memberships are not used when purchased.

What a waste of money. The average gym memberships cost between £100 and £500 a year. At this rate the UK population is wasting between £400 million - £2 billion on gym memberships without using them enough to show benefits of fitness or weight loss!