How to negotiate cheaper gym membership?

I'm thinking about rejoining a high-end gym after a two-year break, and they're still quoting the same membership fees as they had at the height of the tech boom (they're still waiving the initiation fee, same as before). I know they have considerably fewer members now, and would like to leverage this to my advantage.

They have very strict rules on membership termination: if you pay their annual membership fee, which is their lowest, then the only way you can end it is to move beyond a certain radius or lose your job.
Otherwise you're obligated to pay till the end of the year.

If you get their monthly membership, which is more expensive, then you can end it at a month's notice. You also have the option of freezing it for a small fee, from a month to three months.

So, rather than negotiating a lower number altogether, what do you think if I asked for the monthly privileges at the annual fee?

And by the way, I have good reasons for wanting to join an overpriced gym. They have everything to do with the fact that it's right in the same building as my office and offers daytime classes I need in order to motivate myself to work out. I've tried alternatives in the two-year break and failed miserably.

Well, in some ways, it isn't the kind of free marklet you assert it is...

That seems to infer a market without perfect information, wich is a component part of a "free markewt." The reality is that there isn't
"perfect information" in this case, but there is more information than your scenasroi lets on -- specifically, if they give you a certain price, then they basically have to give everyone you know that price.
I, right now, am siting with information from a co-worker about what he pays -- I know that, asuming the gym WOULD negotiate (and I don't think they will), the negotuiatoin would START from my co-worker's price and go down.

While, as I petulantly indicated, there isn't perfect information in this market, there seems to be enuogh that if they started messing with the numbers too much, they'd run into problems. Sure, they could offer 5% off to employees of certian corporate nieghbors, but that's about the extent of it, before they'll basically be cutting off their abilkity to gain anything from a negotiation scenaroi.

I've held off jioning, becuase the price I've heard is a bit higher than I want to pay, and because I haven't heard any indications that anyone's done better. As such, I suspect that while a lot of people claim they get a good price, it's all salesmanship: Making the custromer feel they got a good deal, while everyone's prety-much getting rates wihtin a very narrow range. Epsecially with the chains'
"Passport" memberships, I think this has to be the case.

Free market rules apply here just as anyuwhere else. They might be happy with a low membership and high rates; it could be their "policy", perhaps they use words like "executive" and "exclusive" and rely on people having more cash than brains. Say "I'm not paying that, but I will pay this: (think of a number)." Their options are then (a) return a counter offer which indicates negotiation is an option; (b) Similarly accept, which probably means (a) Shortly is true but you offered too much; (c) let you go.