Thread: Selecting a gym

My most important factors when looking for a gym:

-Hours (they have to have good hours)
-crowd (bb/pl/ol'ers or guys with their hair spiked wearing faded diesel jeans and a tight armani exchange shirt who smell the whole gym up like aqua di gio)
-equipment (benches, power/squats racks, dip/pull up station, lots of heavy weights, dumbells on the racks instead of all over the gym)
-Price - my membership was something like 740 for 14 months.

In addition to Yanick's suggestions, choose a gym where you feel comfortable - a place you like to go. And if the crowd he described ain't your kinda crowd, find the right crowd.

Like real estate, location is also very important. It should be easy to get to from home and/or work.

I suggest you "test drive" a few different gyms to find the right one. I ask them if I can workout for free for a week - and basically refuse to accept "no" for an answer. When I narrow it down to the final two or three, I will ask for another free week, explaining to them what I'm doing. I'm always happy with the results of this process.

I'm currently paying about $60 a month at a very nice facility. It's the best damn $2 I spend everyday!

I pay $40 a month. I chose based on equipment, hours, and amount of foot traffic in the gym.

The previous gym I was at cost $5 less a month and was open 24 hours, BUT I could only go between 12am-7am because of the amount of people there, so I was losing sleep big time over it.

I chose my gym due to location, quality of equipment, and the crowd there.

I am kind of an introvert when I am training. I wear my hat low on my eyes and don't really strike up conversation with anybody, I find the headphones are a great tool to keep people away.

I like to train in a place that is all business, and has a crowd that is the same way. I find it inspiring to look around and observe techniques, as well as progress of other members at the gym. If you are seeing the same people 4-5 days a week, you will get to know them without really knowing them if that makes any sense.

Ok rant over, but most of all you have to feel comfortable in your gym.

I just recently stooped working out at my school gym which was free because of reason I don’t feel like bringing up right now and joined a gym near my house. To give you an idea, I pay $20 a month because I’m a student, if I’m not mistaken it about $30 for everyone else. It has everything I can possibly need in there. It’s open seven days a week. Mon-Fri. 5:00AM-10:00 PM and Sat-Sun 7:00 AM- 8:00 PM. Every time I show up in there is no more than about 15 people around which is awesome. Also everything I have used in there is repeated 3+ times so if someone is using anything I need there is always one free for me. It’s a huge change from my school gym, in a good way.