Thread: Gold's Gym

Depends on where you are. Mine's great, but I have never been during "rush" hours.

It would be early afternoon for me, see my problem is that I used to be at a big name health club and i just got a little tired of it being packed all the time so I found a community center by my home and have been working out there for awhile,the only thing is they just dont have enough equipment, so I think I might try gold's

see if you can get a guest pass for a few days and then go at the time you plan to train so you can see. i've trained at 2 golds gyms and they couldn't be more different from each other so you should check it out before joining. good luck

Thank's ng I think i'll try that

I go to Bally's. No Gold's around me.

I was at Lifetime fitness, and even though I loved the atmosphere there they had a small freeweight area, the place was huge and they had one little corner of it for freeweight's the rest of it was machines.I did check out the gold's gym today but it's not opening untill Feb. but I did like one thing about it already it's alot cheaper.

Originally Posted by nikegurl

see if you can get a guest pass for a few days and then go at the time you plan to train so you can see.

Good advice.

I will say from my experience that Golds is not what it used to be. The Golds I used to go to around here and one I visited on vacation in Florida two years ago were geared towards "the mainstream". Heavy emphasis on classes and other non core bodybuilding activities, members who were more interested in talking and picking up chicks than in training and a staff who would tell serious trainers that they were too serious and thus were intimidating the other members.

You may be OK at off peak time, but the Golds here was hideously crowded on weeknights and Saturday mornings and there was not enough
equipment to avoid having to wait or work in with people. The place I go to now is another chain, but much better equipped and much cheaper.

Gold's is different from most of the other chains in that it is a franchise operation. Each gym is individually owned and operated whereas most of the other chains are owned and operated by the company. That's why your membership to a Gold's in a certain geographical area isn't good for the other Gold's in the same area. The gyms are separately owned and therefore competitors even though the Gold's name is used. When travelling outside your home area, you can use any Gold's for free since there is no competition for memberships involved.

Each Gold's gym is going to be different. Some are extremely good, others are just so-so. Over the holidays I went to a brand new Gold's in Cincinnati and it was one of the swankiest gyms I have ever been to (pool, racquetball courts, all sorts of bells and whistles). I also went to one in Louisville and it was pretty bare bones, in fact a little tired looking. By the way, if you travel a lot, Gold's is a good membership to have since I believe the Gold's chain is the largest.

I'm sure that Gold's corporation has minimum standards in order to use the Gold's name but beyond that it is up to the owner to determine how upscale their operation will be. The membership fees vary widely from Gold's to Gold because of varying quality.

Bottom line: you have to try the Gold's where you live to make a decision. Any decent gym will offer a free tryout period (as mentioned above). Just try it out to see if you like it.

This one out here looks like it's going to be one of the bigger ones,pool,kickboxing,and I guess a basketball court, also there going to have a kind of movie theater in there for when your doing cardio,this is not what I pictured whenever I thought of golds gym,but hey!! it could be pretty cool.So I think i'll give it a try.
Thanks for all the responses.