I’ve gotten a few questions from readers on where I work out. For the most part, I work out at a small private gym which is part of my office complex. I plan to go into more detail on this gym on Friday. However, on the occasional day when I work from home or work out on the weekend, I typically go to 24 hours Fitness, a chain of fitness clubs mostly located on the west coast (although there are east coast clubs as well). Why did I pick 24 Hour Fitness? Read on and find out. Then think about your own gym choice.
Convenient Locations
The nice thing about belonging to a chain of clubs is multiple locations. I have one near my office and one near my house. Of course, I don’t really use the one near my office. Actually, I don’t ever use any other club than the one near my home. So is this really an advantage? Yes, I travel a lot but in all my travels I have NEVER gotten a chance to use another 24 hour fitness club. Either the hotel had a good fitness room or there was no 24 Hour Club within range.
So before you get all excited about joining a chain with hundreds of clubs, think to yourself, am I really going to use all of those? Is there a reason why having gyms I can go to in another state is going to help me?
Convenient Hours
Like the name says, 24 Hour fitness is open 24 hours a day. Sounds great, right? I can work out in the morning, in the evening, even at night if I really feel like it. However, let’s analyze this. 90% of the time, I work out at the office, which means I work out during the day. Even when I don’t work out at the office, I work out during the afternoon. If I couldn’t workout during the workday, I would workout either early in the morning (around 6am) or late in the evening (around 7pm). Most gyms, even non 24 hour ones, are open at those hours. So am I really going to use those “convenient hours”?
Price
Ok, 24 Hour Fitness does have a real advantage here. It costs me about $30 a month and there was no sign up fee. the gym at work is cheaper but that’s because work pays for it, so that’s not a fair comparison. I could get access to a free gym via my school, but that’s up in Berkeley, which is about an hour away. Not very convenient. So yes, cost does matter and 24 Hour is pretty cost effective for me.
Free Weights
24 Hour Fitness does have good selection of free weights. Lots of dumbbells, barbells and plates with plenty of equipment to use them on. This is great and I really enjoy this. There are plenty of sets of the more popular weights and I’ve never needed to wait more than a minute or two before getting the weights I needed. Score one for 24 Hour Fitness.
Exercise Equipment
Most 24 Hour clubs also have a very large selection of weight machines. Sounds good, right? However, when I really look at my workout, I notice that most of the things I use are dumbbells. Sure, I use a couple of machines, but even those can be replaced by barbells. So am I really benefiting from the large selection of weight machines? Seems like I could have done just as well at a gym with not much more than free weights. So for me, this is not an advantage of 24 Hour Fitness.
Cardio Equipment
Again, great selection. However, I don’t use stair masters or stationary bikes or rowing machines. Do I really need all this selection? In fact, the treadmills and ellipticals that 24 Hour has are rather old and not well maintained. So when it comes to this crucial part of my workout, 24 Hour is at a disadvantage compared to most other gyms.
Classes
Strong selection of class, but like the weight equipment, I don’t really use classes, so why do I care?
Do you see where this is going?
Why 24 Hour Fitness?
In the end, I go to 24 Hour Fitness because it’s located close to my house, it’s cheap and it has plenty of free weights. I really wish they would improve their cardio equipment but I can make do for now. Note that many of the so called advantages of 24 Hour Fitness (classes, multiple locations, long hours and so on) are not really advantages for me. That’s an important fact to remember. A lot of people choose their gym based on things that don’t really matter.
It’s great that the gym has a sauna but are you really going to use it that frequently? It’s great that the gym has jazzercise classes, but are you going to go to them? Don’t pick your gym based on what the sales person tells you it has, pick it based on what you need. In my case, I was looking for a cheap gym with plenty of weights that was near my house. That’s exactly what I got.
What are you looking for? Are you looking for classes? Good trainers? Cardio equipment? Make a list of the things that are important to you BEFORE you get to the gym and then ignore everything else. I don’t care how shiny and pretty those machines are that you see. If you’re not going to use them then they may as well be junk. Pick your gym based on what it has that is applicable to you, not what it has that looks pretty.
Most of all, make sure that the gym has a location and hours that are convenient for you. The best gym with the best trainers and gear is useless if it’s too far away. Distance means lack of convenience and that will make you not go.
Summary
24 Hour Fitness has A LOT of features. I don’t use most of them so they’re not really applicable to me as decision criteria. However, they do have what I was looking for at a gym and they have it close by and at a reasonable price. That’s enough for me to make a decision. Just don’t make a mistake of deciding on a gym for the wrong reasons.
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Why did you choose your gym? Does it have everything you need? Are you paying for things that you’re not using?
I have been teaching and writing about the benefits of exercise for years. A lot of what I have written is science based. Some of it conjecture and opinion. A good deal more, nebulous but intentful – just seeking to motivate others to participate in what I enjoy so much; the benefits and joy of daily action. Functional fitness training, strength training, cardiovascular training, core training, bla bla bla-diddy-bla bla bla. Whatever – I’m over all of that. If you don’t know or accept the values and benefits of daily exercise by now, I want you to wear a John Hagee mask so I know who you are when we meet on the street.
People watching – now there’s a value added benefit to exercise that most trainers, physiologists, and wellness specialists don’t delve too deeply into. Being a people watcher in the gym can offer a multi-faceted reason to go to the gym, and can enhance your daily exercise experience. People watching can serve to motivate, educate, and entertain you while you exercise. In that sense, the very idea of quality people watching can be cause for you to leave your home or office at the end of the day, and get that much needed exercise.
Though I own a very well equipped fitness studio at my home, it comes with an inherent problem – it’s at my house, where I live and where I work all day long. Despite my passion for daily exercise, nothing is less appealing after a long day than sticking around the place where I have been for the past 24 hours living and working. I know of few people who like to hang at the office after work to unwind and forget the troubles of their day. Some like to head home, others still go workout. Since exercise is my unwinding time as well, doing it in my “office” just doesn’t make sense some days. Strange as it sounds, despite proximity and my own good equipment, at the end of the day I often head off to the gym.
I’m fortunate in that regard because in all the world there is not a better people watching gym than the 24 Hour Fitness in Oceanside, California. The city of Oceanside itself is a loosely stirred cocktail of such human ingredients as aggressive Marines, wanna be porn stars, die-hard fitness enthusiasts, meth junkies, surfers, working class men and women, a high population of pacific islanders, and very few people who fall outside of these categories. The gym where I workout is but a magnifying glass on that amalgamation of humanity.
Most days I meet my workout partner, Marshall, for a good measure of high-intensity cardio, and a dash of strength and core training. Marshall and I prefer doing cardio on the StepMill, a device that enables one to walk constantly up the down escalator. For many reasons, I believe the StepMill is the most superior piece of cardio equipment in the gym. It also provides the best vantage point for Marshall and I to participate in the observation of human behavior, because these machines tower above the others. Let the people watching begin.
There at our feet they intermingle, if not weave; all the people who make this gym so compelling. There are hard working Marines with unyielding energy and little bodyfat who never stop moving, never stop sweating, and never stop competing with one-another — Ooorah! Watching the Marines can be as educational as it can be entertaining. They often bring to the table exercises and workout schemes that are new to me, or, at least ones I have not visited myself for some time. Our Marines get it done in the field so well because they get it done on their bodies first. True.
Not far a way, a handful of acne covered high school football players with puffy arms, loud voices, and very little endurance fill in some gaps near the free weight side of the gym. They can sure move a bit of weight up and down, but usually not in good form, and most often in need a lot of rest in-between. Despite their school jock status, these kings of the 11th grade are not well-conditioned athletes (yet), and not a good example of what exercise is all about. There is little to learn from watching these man-boys except what not to do in the gym, so take good notes.
Mix in a few 300 pound Samoans who never quit smiling, could bench press my car, and like to read the newspaper to each other and converse loudly in the 10 minutes gaps between their sets. Not the pinnacle of fitness either, but they are good natured and solely responsible for the sense of humor and laughter in this gym that seems to be appreciated by most. In that sense, they are the Wal-Mart greeters of the free weight room and serve to make it less intimidating to newcomers.
In close proximity usually there are several separate groups of fully tattooed ex-convicts with shaved heads, in baggy shorts and wife beater shirts. They may be back on the “inside” next month, so they tend to try and lift heavier and more often than they should when they are on the “outside”. California prisons have abandoned weight room facilities so they are making meat while the sun shines. Again, not a lot of learning to be done here except what not to do in the gym – as well as how not to dress. There can be as much learned by observing other people exercising poorly, as there can be gained by watching a true athlete. By watching intently, you just know when something isn’t correct.
In the cardio theater there is row after row of peroxide blondes and blonde teeny-boppers. Some look to be pole dancers while others just aspire to look like pole dancers. Most with tattoos along their lower backs, sprayed on tans as they go through the motions, their killer pony tails swing from side to side on the elliptical machines – all the while their faces stair blankly at Wolf Blitzer on the TV before them as they ponder in their simple minds what “nuclear proliferation” might mean. Perhaps it’s a country near “Iraq and such”. Though they often possess thin bodies, this is more likely the result of youth and dubious eating habits, than efforts in the gym. Just going through the motions of exercise might make one feel better, but in this day and age, save the gas money. Not much to be learned from this group.
There are also a few square-jawed collegiate athletes who call this gym home in Summer, both male and female. These are the least compelling and the least entertaining persons in the room, but an astute observer can improve their exercise technique and increase their repertoire of exercises by keeping their eyes fixed to these folks. Like the Marines, collegiate athletes often employ new schemes, better techniques, patterns, and in a more proper application than other gym members. These are often the product of modern strength and conditioning principles brought along to the gym directly from coaches and trainers at their respective universities. The lesson they teach best: intensity and focus. Mimic, but let common sense be your guide.
Some aspiring young fitness trainers working with every day people seeking improvement are also in the mix. Fitness trainers, myself included, can be placed into two groups: those who choose this as a career and approach their craft as such, and those who think it would be great to hang out in a gym all day not have a real job. The latter out number the former by a thousands to one, and in the gym in Oceanside, it is no different. How ironic it is that one can learn much about how not to exercise by watching a novice trainer teach someone how to exercise. I cringe when watching this process on occasion.
This is all compelling from my stair-stepping vantage point, somewhat educating, a bit motivating, and always entertaining. These people, with whom I never interact, are my very reason to go to the gym. They motivate me and they entertain me — simultaneously. They often affirm for me how not to exercise just as much as they confirm and legitimize my own insight and experience. They remind me of all the reasons why we should exercise, and all the more, why we should do it properly and within reasonable bounds.
This isn’t just my gym, this is your gym too. The names and shapes may be different at your club, but the actions and common threads will likely be there. My moral in all of this? Observe others and learn — but use common sense as your tablet, and keen application as your pen. As much as you learn, be sure to learn not to in equal portion. Apply your notes with diligence and with self respect. Observing others lends a hidden value to my gym experience and just might do the same for you. Mostly it amuses me, and after a hard day’s work, I’m good with that.
The 24 Hour Fitness in Oceanside, California
sounds like a great place to workout! Perhaps we can call it a tie with my fitness center. Gainesville Health and Fitness! If you are ever in North Central Florida, give it a shot. It won’t be home, but its over 50,000 sq. feet of workout space will be filled with equipment and people to make your visit memorable!
If ever in Gainesville, I will check it out Dr. J!