Join a Gym in 2004

If you’ve vowed this is the year you'll get in shape, it's a great time to check out your local gym. It's not the one you tried 10 years ago. Today's gym sports cool new classes and equipment that reflect a new emphasis on goal-oriented fitness and preventive exercise. Gyms are responding to concerns about aging and injuries, and a desire for overall health (for instance, management of weight, cholesterol and diabetes) as well as fitness. They now focus on preventive-exercise classes such as core training, which strengthens the abs and back and builds flexibility; martial arts, Pilates and yoga all address that need.

Sports-specific training is another trend, whether it's bringing members together to form sports teams or offering classes that focus on the various skills (including endurance, flexibility, agility, strength, balance, power, speed and reaction time) associated with a particular activity.

In addition to adding popular equipment such as cross trainers and those retro medicine balls, gyms also have started reacting to members' desire to exercise more efficiently by offering hybrid classes that blend cardio and stretching, cardio and weights, and so on.

So sign up, but note: Gyms get an influx of new members every January. By March, those who aren't going to stick with it are gone, so the crowds will thin out.

Stephanie Oakes is a fitness correspondent for Discovery Health Channel, a contributing editor for USA Weekend Magazine and the LA Times, and appears on NBC's 'Today in New York'. She can be reached at soakes@beststuff.com.