Pros and Cons of your gym, rate it from 1 - 10

zeta30

I belong to LA Fitness

Pros
Newer equipment and large open floor, basketball, racquetball courts, the front desk staff is really nice, I have a lot of friends there. Price, my wife and I were part of the Bally Total Fitness buyout so I am locked in at $17/month and my wife is $15. We have friends that are locked in at $75/year.

Cons
The free weights are never picked up, speaking of free weights there are no 35lb plates, it goes from 25 to 45. Every Monday morning at 5:00am there is trash all over the place. When machines get broke they stay broke for about a month. The management is horrible and flat out rude, they also treat their employees like cr@p, they act like they are doing you a favor by being open. No bars where you can do chin ups, you can do pull ups on handles but not pull ups.

All in all I would rate my gym a 6 out of 10.

Sabine_Stroehm

I have two gyms: work (university) and craptastic planet fitness ($10 plan)

Work:
Pros: incredible array of weights, bars, plates, benches, you name it. Good machines for when I want those. Plenty of treadmills, great stretching area. FREE
Cons: the weight room is available to me as faculty from 6am-7am and after 7pm on weekdays. and 12-5 on weekends. Cardio is always available to me. The music is loud, annoying and often misogynistic.

PF:
Pros: great hours. Ten bucks.
Cons: no free weights to speak of beyond some barbells and a few bars. It's purple and yellow.
Basically I use it for early morning weekend winter treadmill runs.

jimmie65

Pros: Open 24 hours. Very close. No waiting for someone else. I don't have to put my weights back. I can work out in my underwear. And the beer fridge is right next to the squat rack.
Cons: It'd be nice to have a rower or jacob's ladder.
9,5 out of 10.

bagsrpacked

I have 2:

Lifetime Fitness - 10

Pros: Lap pool and laps in the rec pool open only to adults most of the day - steam room in the locker room - REAL towels (not icky scratchy hand towels that you can't dry off with), numerous free classes, great online support, an abundance of cardio and weight training options, onsite cafe with healthy options for post workout refueling - I could literally spend all day there and often work out longer just because I like the environment - no obnoxous meatheads flinging conquest stories and swear words around - family friendly. (can you tell I used to belong to another, unnamed gym that you couldn't pay me to go back into?) They always have someone on hand to offer tips/help - yes, you can pay for training, but if you have a couple of questions, they'll answer them for free. Rock Climbing, volleyball, basketball, leagues, running clubs, swim coaching all available at a minimal cost and sometimes even free. Multiple locations, open 24/7/359 (they are usually closed for a week in August to clean/refurbish)

Cons: It is a little pricey at $55 per month (I've been a member for quite some time, and I think its more for newer members) It can get crowded and parking can be an issue at specific times of the day (even though the lot is huge - I actually LOST MY CAR yesterday after parking in a different area than I usually park in, but I guess it became an extra workout as I circled the parking lot on foot a few times looking for it)

Park District Gym: "4"

Pros: - 5 minutes from the house. Basic workout equipment - older cardio equipment, very basic weight room. Good for those days when you can't spend much time but want a real basic workout and can't do it at home. CHEAP (family membership $25/mo), great sauna in the locker room (vs in the pool area at Lifetime - this is nice on those cold days when your gym bag has been in the car and your workout clothes are cold - a few minutes in there warms you and the clothes up really fast!). Convenient, but not open 24 hours. OH, they also have those ladder thingys - very cool and really effective! Lifetime doesn't have these (or if they do, I've never seen them).

Cons: Old equipment - the treadmill is painful to run on (it makes noise, isn't easy to change settings on, and I can "hear" my feet hitting the belt). Locker room full of naked people - where the other gym has signs up asking you to please be polite to other guests and wear a towel, people here seem to think its ok to blow dry their hair stark naked - sorry, but I really don't need to see that - parking here is limited and fills quickly so you have to park at the high school which is adjacent - not a bad thing in the spring, summer, and fall, but in the winter when its icy, not so nice.


I don't cry when I have to go to the park district facility, but I truly love my membership at Lifetime.

kmc979

after having a membership to a YMCA 25 minutes from my house i decided to swap all the extras for something closer to home which makes it more likely that i will go. in fact, i have been to my new gym more in the past month than i went during the 6 months i was at the Y

My current gym rating:

pro:
0.5 miles from my house
really cool atmosphere
digital lockers (no more forgetting my lock!)
only a few meathead guys, most are there to lift and not show off
did i mention how close it is??!!
not a huge place, don't feel overwhelmed in there
the water fountain has a built in water bottle bottle filler that senses the bottle and fills it up, no touching required. and the water is filtered.
it's only been open a year or so so it has updated equipment
the elliptical/bikes/treadmills have their own tv's on them
when my year membership expires it automatically becomes month to month staying at the same rate.

con:
no group fitness other than the occasional spin class, once a week boxing thing that looks fun and i might try. they are really big into what they call functional training which is basically crossfit.
not a huge place which leaves no room for group fitness
i was able to take advantage of a special they were having and got my membership for $39 a month, no fee, normal is $49 a month with $100 initiation fee.

all in all, I love it there, feel very comfortable there. I would rate it 8/10 www.zsfitness.com

Graelwyn75

Pro - 3 minute walk up the road, cheap membership, open 24 hours, relatively clean, usually staff about.
Con - not enough racks, too small a weights section, boring music, nowhere near enough choice of classes, no sauna, no pool, very basic, some staff unprofessional in their conduct, often out of order machines, no cafe, no tv on machines.

lilpoindexter

24 hour fitness.
Overall, I like it...I'd give it an 8, and I would recommend it to anyone.
Pros:
Around $300/ 2 years when you get a membership from costco.
It's open 24 hours...most of the members are pretty nice, the staff is pretty nice and accomodating.
There's a lot of freeweights, but not as many as i wish there was...too many damn machines.
There's plenty of cardio machines

Cons
Like anywhere, dirty *kitten* pigs that don't rerack their weights. I go at 330AM, so I cut the workers some slack for not getting the weights back on the rack in a timely manner. Most of the cardio machines have some malfunction...the earphone jack, or they don't adjust angle, or whatever.

Overall, I think it's the perfect gym for anyone who isn't going to be a competitive bodybuilder (99.9999% of us).


EDIT: I do a moderate ammount of travel for work, and I can almost always find a 24 hr nearby the hotel.

tsikkz

Pros:
Lots of serious bodybuilding types (eye candy)
24 hour
Tons of elliptical and treadmills
I get a good deal
Tanning beds
Parking

Cons:
Its really ugly (red and black)
Lots of serious body building types (equipment always in use)
its 24hr and in a dodgy part of town
The employees don't live healthy lifestyles

Can't really rate out of 10 I have nothing to compare it to