Gym Report

I'm getting a bit disgruntled with my gym, so I'm shopping around for a new one. Thought I'd record my experiences here, for the WWW (whole wide world) to see.

FERNWOOD (Chirnside): where I am currently. Cost is $18/week on direct debit (the cheapest membership, and sole payment option). The only group classes that I'm interested in are Body Pump on Fridays 6:30pm, and Yoga on Tuesdays 6:30pm. They used to have a Monday night Pump, but dropped it in favour of a Body Step - which I'm not interested in. The cardio area is pretty good with lots of treadmills, cycles, rowers, etc. No complaints there. The weights area is pathetic - I guess because this is a women's gym, and women don't do weights? The pin-machines are on either side of the corridor leading to the changing rooms, and where people wait for the group classes. So there's a lot of traffic, and it's a bit unpleasant. The free weights are in a tiny area along with the fitballs and stretching mats, so you're jostling for space all the time. There's more personal space in a Pump class, so that's where all my weight training is done at the moment. Aerobics room and spin room are good.

My logic (and this is female logic - you have been warned) for wanting somewhere else is that I'm tired and ready to go home at 6 o'clock when I finish work. And because Fernwoods is only 5 minutes up the road, I'm still tired and ready to go home when I drive past it. So it's easy to keep going. In contrast, when I go to Street-O, it's normally a 30+ minute drive, and I'm nicely refreshed by the time I get there. So if I can find a gym that's a bit further away, I might be more inclined to call in? Will ponder this for a few weeks while I check out some other gyms in the area.

GENESIS (Ringwood): called in at 1pm Wed 6/4/05, and got the guided tour from a young male consultant (manager?). I know about 1/2 dozen people who use this gym, so it must be okay. Cost is $17/wk on direct debit, or just over $12/wk on a 12-month membership. Plus a $165 joining fee. I told my tour guide I was interested in weights and yoga; so I was shown the swimming pool (where women like to do aqua aerobics), the women-only area (fair enough, I guess), the main weights area (mostly pin-machines), and the cardio, spin and group exercise rooms. When I commented that I didn't see any free-weights, he said, Oh, I didn't think you were interested. So we went to see some dumbbells. He waved his hand in the general direction of a weights room where I glimpsed a couple of benches, and said that that's where the serious weight trainers hung out, and that it was mostly blokes, and any women in there were usually pretty scary-looking. Gee, as a (I hope) non-scary-looking babe, I wouldn't be interested in all that stuff.

GENESIS (Bayswater)

LILYDALE FITNESS CENTRE (Lilydale)

SPARTANS (Kilsyth)

CROYDON FITNESS CENTRE (Croydon)