Choosing a gym

luce.rocks

luce.rocks

Until this La Nina weather phenomenon kicked in, I got most of my exercise form walking to and from work in the city each day. Now with all this rain, and winter around the corner, I've decided I better join a gym or I'm going to end up going a bit mental from the lack of exercise.

Here's my dilemma:

I have 4 gyms within walking distance. I want to join a gym that:
1. Is open on weekends
2. Offers 6 month memberships
3. Has group fitness classes
4. Isn't really grotty

The 4 gyms within walking distance are:

1. UTS Gym:
Big, clean, lots of different classes, lots of equipment. $365 for 6 months membership, but NOT OPEN ON SUNDAYS.

2. Fernwood, Broadway:
Small, friendly, women-only, free breakfast weekedays :), expensive but worth it, but WON'T LET ME JOIN FOR LESS THAN 12 MONTHS.

3. Members Health:
Brand new equipment, reasonable prices, but ONLY OFFERS SPIN AND BOXING CLASSES.

4. Broadway Gym:
Not much natural light, lots and lots of bulky men (that's not a selling point), smelled musty and sweaty and poorly ventilated (ew).

I promised myself I'd make a decision this weekend, but I'm having trouble weighing it up.

Anyways, just though I'd have a winge. I'm gen X/Y, afterall.
 
Last edited:
Have a look on the local classifieds for someone offloading their fernwood membership... it costs $75 to transfer it from them to you, and you only take on as many months as they have left.
 
Don't know anything about those gyms, but for the price of 6-12 months membership you could buy your own piece of equipment for home (if you have some space to put it).

To replace walking you could buy a treadmill, or something like a we have which is a recumbent bike / rowing machine. The advantage of the latter is that you can work your upper body as well with the rowing exercise. From memory we paid something like $700 for it brand new (you could probably get something second hand as well).

The main down sides are that you don't get the variety of exercise as at a gym (but then you're only replacing walking) or the social interaction, and I think motivation is easier if you're at a gym. On the plus side though, the equipment should last quite a few years if it's of reasonably quality.

Cheers,
GP
 
The guys at work picked up some pretty flash treadmills on EBAY before XMas for around $650-700 ..much better than shop prices
 
Obviously there would be different rules at all gyms Luce, but check the one that won't let you join for less than 12 months.

Some of them will make you pay for the entire 12 months if you leave, but others just charge you a cancellation fee (my old gym just charged $50 from memory).

You can always lie and say in 6 months that you're moving cities, so can't exactly stay a member (although be careful and check that the city you're 'moving to' doesn't have a gym there too if it's a franchise!).
 
luce.rocks said:
Until this La Nina weather phenomenon kicked in, I got most of my exercise form walking to and from work in the city each day. Now with all this rain, and winter around the corner, I've decided I better join a gym or I'm going to end up going a bit mental from the lack of exercise.

Here's my dilemma:

I have 4 gyms within walking distance. I want to join a gym that:
1. Is open on weekends
2. Offers 6 month memberships
3. Has group fitness classes
4. Isn't really grotty

The 4 gyms within walking distance are:

1. UTS Gym:
Big, clean, lots of different classes, lots of equipment. $365 for 6 months membership, but NOT OPEN ON SUNDAYS.

2. Fernwood, Broadway:
Small, friendly, women-only, free breakfast weekedays :), expensive but worth it, but WON'T LET ME JOIN FOR LESS THAN 12 MONTHS.

3. Members Health:
Brand new equipment, reasonable prices, but ONLY OFFERS SPIN AND BOXING CLASSES.

4. Broadway Gym:
Not much natural light, lots and lots of bulky men (that's not a selling point), smelt musty and sweaty and poorly ventilated (ew).

I promised myself I'd make a decision this weekend, but I'm having trouble weighing it up.

Anyways, just though I'd have a winge. I'm gen X/Y, afterall.
Click to expand...

No decision; join the one with the hottest looking staff.
 
I'd actually first look for a gym partner. I find that without the motivation of a partner then doesn't mater what gym you go to you will most likely wont attend the gym. Then decide what gyms best for both of you.
 
I got sick of not using my gym memebership. (Too busy, too tired, too many$$ ,too ??? etc etc :) )
So I did like one of the other suggestions and bought a treadmill on ebay.

Best thing I ever did. I jump on it for at least 10 mins in the morning before my shower. (Im my jammies too most days!! Very attractive let me tell you!!!)

If I am home for the day, I drag it out to the lounge room under the fan and go for a long "walk" while sunrise is on in the morning. I have downlaoded a heap of songs onto my MP3 player and just "go".

For the price of the treadmill, I have saved at least 6months on my old gym memebership.

Cheers
Sue
 
Gees Luce, why not just go and give your list to Santa......

Meanwhile, back on planet earth, why not
- phone a few commercial REAs and find out the cost /m2 for a commercial lease in a warehouse such as suitable for a gym (high visibility, close to residential area)
- familiarize yourself with staff wages
- phone a gym equipment manufacturer and get a quote to lease/buy their gear
- calculate cost of phone, internet, air con (including purchase and installation), insurances, advertising, yellow page listing, etc etc

then work out how many memberships at what value a gym needs to sell to be viable.

If you do this, you'll be less likely to join a gym that goes bust, and lose a prepaid membership....

Or at least you'll understand why some gyms struggle to stay open 70 hours a week....

The option is to buy yourself a 3 metre piece of sturdy rope and jog to your local park and do calisthenics (lunges, push ups, burpees, sprints, russian bicycles) and tie the rope to a tree and do dips, chin ups, reverse pushups

That way you save a $1000 after tax pa = $1428 pre tax, which can service another $18,000 pa of property debt.

And if that 18k of extra property grows at 7%pa on average over the next 10 years, you end up making 35409.....

So the opportunity cost of joining your ideal gym is $3,500 a year over 10 years. Seems a pretty steep price to pay if you have to sniff around to save $200.
 
WinstonWolfe said:
jog to your local park
Click to expand...
luce.rocks said:
I got most of my exercise form walking to and from work in the city each day. Now with all this rain, and winter around the corner
Click to expand...
I think she's looking for an alternative to exercising outdoors.

I agree about the gym going bust thing though, and would be very wary of paying for a 12 month membership. I never paid more than 3 months when I used to frequent a gym.

GP
 
Some indoor exercise options for you that don't require a gym membership:

1. swimming
2. basketball
3. tennis
4. volleyball
5. roller skating
6. rock climbing
7. aerobics
8. sex

They all get the heart rate up for a while.

Or, buy one of those really good "gustbuster" golf umbrellas and keep walking to work. That's what my wife does.
 
luce.rocks said:
Here's my dilemma:

I have 4 gyms within walking distance. I want to join a gym that:
1. Is open on weekends
2. Offers 6 month memberships
3. Has group fitness classes
4. Isn't really grotty
Click to expand...

I recently joined a gym as well and had to do the rounds of due diligence. I ended up joining Goodlife as they had all the above except they only do a 12 month membership. That was OK with me though, as I reckon that if I've paid for the 12 months already I will be more inclined to keep going than if I only paid 6 or 3 months. You really need to be going for quite a while to get any benefit, so if you only go for 3 months say, and then stop going, you've basically wasted that 3 months worth of money and time, as 3 months will not have made any long-term difference to your muscle strength, fat loss, overall health etc etc.

Goodlife also have all the Les Mills classes plus Pilates, Yoga, Spin classes, Aqua aerobics, pool, Thai boxing classes, cardio equipment with built-in TV screens and is air-conditioned. I expect that most of the big franchise gyms offer the same sort of thing but they all only have 12 month membership.
 
Hi all,

Thanks for the recommendations (even yours WinstonWolfe!). Checked out a few Fernwood memberships for sale on ebay, but have decided to just go ahead and sign up for the whole year.

The main reason I wasn't sure about signing up for a year was because I figured I'd move out of this unit once I'd finished renovating it, and rent it out. So I didn't know if I'd still be in Ultimo in 12 months time.

Then I started to think about where I could move to if I moved out and, without getting into a big schpiel, realised I'd be better off staying put.

So Fernwood it is.

Cheers,

Luce
 
I joined the Contours gym last September and have been every day, even have my 100 visit t-shirt. It is women only, a 29 minute circuit, loads of giggles.

I know its not a gym in the usual use of the word but it is great for mature women, there is no hassle about wearing gym clothes, etc., it is just a good fun way of getting a bit fitter.

It is 6 days a week and I am pleased for the day off!!!

I highly recommend it to any non gym women out there looking to improve their fitness

Chris
 
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