How to pick a gym

[Enko]

I want to get back to the gym. However I am struggling a lot with working out what gym would be good.

I've in the past belonged to what some will call spa gym and I will admit I prefer this
I have also belonged to pure gym. I disliked that a lot.

However finances now dictate that I cannot afford to pay £1-200 a month on the gym.

I have been looking around and found a few that's around £5-60 a month.

However where I get stuck is.
What do you look for? How do you find our if a gym is a good fit for you?

I know cleanliness is important for me. Part of my dislike for pure gym is the smell of old sweat as I walk through the door.
I also like a pool however I think I have to give up on that.one to not go up to the 200ish a month.
I like some classes the 2 I've found both offer some.

I'm 50+ I'd prefer a gym that's not only young people but how do I find that out?

What else should I look for? How can you work put if a gym is a good fit for you?

I signed up for a month at a couple of local ones, since they were both only £20ish, had the inductions & carried on at the one I preferred.

The equipment & atmospheres were similar at both - good age ranges (I’m 50), plenty of women - but the second one, Gym Group, was closer and had a personal trainer I liked.

My main criterion is that it's walking distance from home & work, to encourage me to go every day.

I belonged to a commercial chain gym (not Pure Gym) that had a good mix of ages, but the branch did not survive the pandemic, sadly. My local leisure centre (the city council outsources its management to a private firm) has quite a good range of ages, and instructor-led classes.

Most gyms will give you a free day pass or a weekly pass, so use that to try out a few. Each will do the hard sell, but you can resist that - you don't have to sign up on the day, but you can get the info & go away & sleep on your decision.

I use a council run gym as its close to home and offers lots of classes. It also has a pool. You can use all the venues in the local authority too. I pay about £35 for me and then its an extra £10 to add ds onto my membership

Distance from home
Opening hours
Visit at the time of day you'd be going to get an idea of how busy it is and availability of equipment
Class timetable if you're wanting to do classes
Pool timetable if you're wanting to swim (look out for things like kids swimming lessons and aquafit which limit your options for lane swimming)
Check the contract tie-in period.

I would be surprised if you can't get a council gym with a pool for much less than £200 p/m.

There can be a huge difference between prices for private gyms - e.g in my city an everlast one was £30 p/m, national one about £40, Bannatynes and a local nice hotel chain about £50-60 p/m and then David Lloyd extortionate at about £120. All with pools.

As pp suggest, try a guest pass/tour. My experience is that cheap/24hr gyms like pure gym tend to have younger clients, most other places are mixed. However the other side of that is that most council gyms or spa ones will have children whereas the pure gym types are 18 plus.

Opening times are key-my council one closes really early on the weekends which is useless.

Any hotels with gyms near you? Usually smaller but can be quieter too.

Are you entitled to any discount i.e via your workplace? Lots of employers do schemes with local gyms to support staff wellbeing and health.

I'm happy with the local council gym, newish facilities, lots of classes and machines at the gym. I can use all the sites in the county, most have pools and have been recently renovated.

Council gym.is not accessible during the time I would need to go.

Hotels with gyms are £200+ and have a waiting list.

I am going to go see one for £60 a month

I go to a council pool which is about 15 min drive and separately a specialist weight training gym which is a 35 min drive - but a nice country drive no traffic! For same reasons as you I can’t face a busy council gym even though it would save me about £30 a month. I just wouldn’t go
to a gym I didn’t like being in.

My weights gym is often completely empty when I go on a Sunday mid morning. Spotlessly clean and really big with great equipment so worth the drive. Pool is £27pm gym is £40pm.

Also neither have a contract. I’d never join somewhere with a contract again

I went with my 2 daughters (20s) and we joined on a joint set up so for the 3 of us it's £94 a month pretty decent. The girls have both been to a class for boxing and loved it and dd3 has been to the gym twice already (She is a big gym goer and home from uni)

I have my introduction Thursday

Best thing to do is go check out the gym during hours you would use it. That way you'll get a real sense what it is like.

Otherwise this is a helpful site to compare reviews!

www.gymreviewers.co.uk/