And you wonder why a 'summer body' is so preciously rare...

Gyms - always popular in the New Year, always popular in the few months before the summer season, and deserted the rest, seemingly.

It only takes seconds to conjour up a New Year's resolution in the form of exercise, be it starting a sport, progressing at your chosen activity, or joining a gym (and actually going to it). Come February, most gym go-ers have either cancelled their membership or will stupidly pay their monthly direct debits whilst not actually attending the gym until they come to realise that it's almost summer, which means it's that time again to dream of the perfect body.

Just as suspected, Bournemouth's Fitspace (the gym I currently go to) got extremely busy the past few months. Between exams for us uni attendees and during lunch-breaks and ends of workdays for those that have made something of themselves in life the gym gets extremely packed. Machines are shared, not by courtesy but more by force. Benches are huddled around by eager weightlifters, whilst free weights are messily laid around the gym floor as strangers pick up uneven weights to stretch those muscles that are hidden somewhere underneath the layers of fat and tissue that last year's body-project has turned into.

Results or not, as soon as the sun comes out, it seems the majority of gym go-ers, both here and at my University gym, neglect their exercise routine and visit the beach. Within seconds, shirts are donned and musclular bodies are laid out for all to see. Shamefully, none of these are that of the regular gym go-ers.

Just weeks into the summer, the pounds are piling on as per usual for everyone, everywhere. Ice creams and beers put weights in the shade, and once more the direct debit comes out of the account without the user once re-visiting the gym to tone up.

It's only June now, and I can already see this happening drastically fast. Even the gym seems to encourage it. The TVs, once showing Sky Sports News 24/7, is continuously showing repeats of Friends and teenage dramas on Channel 4, whilst the free weights room - once recreating the atmosphere of a sweaty, bassy club - is eerily silent. Voices disintegrate, as does the music, as the people flock to the beach and the music is turned completely off.

At the start of May, just several weeks ago, I would count my blessings if I could enter the free weights room and find a bench within five minutes (even if it had to be shared). Now, I can walk up the stairs into the room and would be shocked to find two of the three benches being used. Just this week, I could count on my two hands how many people where sharing the same 20 or so machines/benches/weights that I was. In May, this number would be far, far higher.

As Summer comes to a close, no doubt gym memberships will begin to flood in again as such seasonal gym go-ers will restart their process of donning the pounds in time for Christmas. Once more, as Christmas arrives and the beer begins to flow, the gyms will be deserted until New Years resolutions are re-written and once more the money begins to flow out of the piggy banks into the gym owners' pockets.

No wonder a 'summer body' is so illustrious. If exercise routines were adhered to as strictly as those that have these miraculous bodies, there would be dozens of people on the beach with the same perfect bod. Instead, this isn't the case. A good body takes years of work to perfect, and a few visits here and there to the gym isn't going to get the desired results.