Gym questions

[Bunny007]

I've had friends of mine comment on how much they like laundry service and lockers. I'm personally a huge fan of group classes, the more variety the better- pilates, yoga, kickbox, abs, handweights, spin, and whatnot- and offered often and reliably.

Sturdy, functioning equipment is a huge plus. Nothing kills motivation (especially someone for ME that lacks it) more than broken or shoddy equipment. My biggest pet peeve is when none of the treadmills are working or there's a wait because only a few are working.

Hmmm what else... long hours, squash and racquetball courts would be awesome but maybe not worth it for you depending on the level of interest in your community. I love pilates classes that use equipment (Reformers, I think they're called) are awesome and sometimes hard to find. They're expensive but again, might be worth it depending on people's level of interest.

I'm a huge sucker for appearances. I don't like shopping in stores that have atrocious lighting and unorganized displays/racks. It's a mental block. Same goes for gyms. Nice lighting, lots of windows, new magazines, fans/AC- all of these seemingly small things are huge when it comes to getting me "in the mood" to work out. To be fair, I'm not naturally inclined to go to the gym and usually have to make myself. But then, I imagine many people are.

Good luck to you! I can't wait to hear how it goes, how exciting for you

 

[FrekeChild]

My gym requirements (which I'm familiar with because we just joined one!):

-Small
-open 24/7 (I keep weird hours)
-no grunting and swearing and showing off how good you are at making noise
-decent variety of cardio machines
-weigh machines
-close to the house

We chose Snap Fitness. We're 1 mile away from it, it's very small, NO GRUNTING ALLOWED, have to use a key card to get in--and it's open 24/7, has a real neighborhood feel to it since there are always the same people at the same times.

Plus it's got a tanning bed, lots of free weights, mats, TVs (which drives me nuts sometimes because I'll go in there and all 4 tvs will be tuned to football--I promptly change one of them), plus lots of cleaning supplies for the machines--alcohol wipes, hand sanitizer, etc. Oh and it doesn't have a locker room--just cubbies to store stuff while you're working out--which is just how small it is.

I would have liked a pool, but the only gym around here that offers one is $70 per person and about 5 miles away. Snap is $50 for both of us. Not a hard choice in the end!

 

[packrat]

Thanks for the feedback! It's so helpful!

Hoping we get together to look thru it soon-will be fun to have a more concrete plan to go on as far as how big it is, what will fit, what will go where etc. I've only been in it once, but have never seen the whole place. I took London down to get her hair cut and you walk thru the tanning salon to get to the hair salon and I think there are 14 tanning rooms (only tanning place in town), plus the hair place has 3 cutting stations and 2 pedi chairs, and the Curves room is about 1/2 the size of our house. (Plus the front waiting room for tanning, and the Church's area I didn't see, and I'm positive there's extra space on that first level, a full basement and I believe there's a 2nd/3rd floor. Not sure what those spaces would be for...secret laboratory?

 

[Sabine]

The only real non-negotiable for me is to have individual tvs on the cardio equipment. I know that's not realistic for a lot of gyms, but that is the only thing that keeps me motivated to work out (I got at times when there's a show on I want to watch), so it's not worth it for me to join if they don't have that. The tv mounted from the ceiling doesn't work because I can't control the channel and have issues getting my headphones to work.

Things I'd like to see but aren't dealbreakers are childcare and classes included in the monthly price. There are also some specific machines I look for (ones that do inner and outer thighs, ab machines), but again, I'd only join mainly to do cardio.

 

[Tuckins1]

Honestly, the number one thing for me is CLEANLINESS!!!! I joined a somewhat rinky-dink gym when I was young and have a lifetime membership, so it's kind of silly for me to join somewhere else. It's kind of old and run down, but the thing that gets me is the gross funk in the locker room/bathroom.