New Year's resolutions and Christmas overeating will have hundreds flocking to gyms in south west Hertfordshire this weekend, but many will be wasting their registration fees.

An estimated four million people are expected to sign up for gym membership in January, with local gyms preparing themselves for record numbers.

Attendance is however predicted to take a sharp drop in the following months, with most people not visiting the gym as often as they hoped they would.

Sportz Academy, in The Parade, Watford, and Bushey Country Club are among the gyms expecting a surge in membership in the first few weeks of 2008.

Bushey Country Club is expecting around 80 people to sign up for a year's membership in January but Leighton Dewitt of the club agreed that many would fail to keep up with the programmes they signed up for.

Mark Burgess, of Sportz Academy, The Parade, said: "I've been involved in the fitness industry for many years and can say it's very predictable. In the next three months we'll get a huge surge of people signing up, either to restart their fitness programme or for medical reasons.

"It's been getting better and better every year with numbers increasing. The hardest thing is people not sticking to their programme. We try to keep them involved and encourage them to stick with it but many people sign up only to fail in keeping up with programmes."

Research by Sainsbury's Bank showed that only around a quarter of those signing up to gyms would go more than twice a month. The average annual gym membership in the UK is around £400.

Emma Powell of Shapers Health and Racket Club, Park Avenue, Watford, said January and September were the busiest times for the club with around five people signing up for annual membership.

She said policies preventing people from cancelling membership encouraged people to regularly attend the club after signing up.

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