My slowly clotting heart screams yes.
Luckily, a few of my classmates and I analyzed local gyms for our Buyer Beware project. That means I can make an informed decision about what facility would be best suited to me and my struggling cardiovascular system! Yippee!
I shall sum up our research in a few words:
GoodLife Fitness – Beautiful, expensive, pushy/friendly staff (is that possible?), evasive, and somewhat sinister. The clients smell of polo, caviar, and fine leather. Not for me.
Anytime Fitness – It’s called Anytime for two reasons: It’s open 24 hours and there are no staff there at anytime. In reality it is staffed from 11a.m.-7p.m. most days during the week, but not at all on weekends. Notime fitness? It also only has one location – on Ness. Not for me.
Shapes Fitness Centres – locally based, universally rude. Not for me.
YMCA – cheap, warm and fuzzy, a ton of extra services provided in membership (pool, classes), friendly staff, website that is so politically correct it is funny. For me.
In short, if you are rich enough to throw money around carelessly, go to GoodLife. If you live on Ness, have an erratic sleep cycle where you want to work out at 3:32a.m, but can also be up during the day to go and buy a membership when the place is staffed, go to Anytime. If you’re anything else, go to YMCA-YWCA. Don’t go to Shapes.
Other facts worth noting:
- YMCA is the only chain gym we looked at where you can cancel your membership without a fee. GoodLife charges you $99, while Anytime and Shapes lock you into a contract in which you can’t cancel (unless you move far away/die).
- Shapes and GoodLife do not provide prices online or over the phone (at least in our experience). YMCA lists prices over the phone, but not online. Only Anytime provides prices online and over the phone.
- YMCA had the cutest girls working (I assure you this in no way influenced our decision to rate it highest).
- GoodLife’s downtown location makes you feel like Tony Montana. The sprawling windows overlooking Portage and Main – the world is yours.
As always with anything you write Dylan a great read! I would have to say we are similar in the fact that I also tend to stay away from the combined stench of caviar, polo and fine leather or imitation or English for that matter and why feel like Tony Montan when you can see cute girls if that was going to influence in the slightest, which it wouldn't. :)
ReplyDeleteHaha, I love the paint picture. A+ to you Mr. Hal Johnson!
ReplyDeleteThanks Chadd. I'll take a pretty face over Scarface any day. And Terryn, that painting is inspired by the pointillist movement. Notice the delicate smattering of red surrounding the text. Took me three weeks.
ReplyDeleteDo I smell of caviar? I'm a Goodlife girl ha. Except now that I'm full time at school and needing to pay for it, I had to put it on hold.
ReplyDeleteDid you know that you still pay a percentage of your membership fee even if you "freeze" your account?
Anyway, awesome blog and interesting topic. My group did detox diets so I guess it's marginally related by the factor of health.
Portage and Main looks a lot different these days: palm trees and everything!
ReplyDeleteI think they're part of the downtown revitalization efforts. It's an interesting approach.
ReplyDelete