Posted by Christian Aguirre on Tue, Jan 12, 2010 @ 05:55 PM
Over the next couple of weeks I will be doing reviews of East Bay health clubs and sharing my personal experience about each one I go to.
I'm going to start with an East Bay 24 Hour Fitness Club that I recently worked out at for the last 3 days. For the most part, it was like most fitness centers during January, extremely crowded, all the cardio equipment was taken, and every sales rep was trying to sell me on a "New Years Special."
My experience at 24 Hour Fitness was good overall. The clubs I visited had nice equipment, were a big facility, had good energy, and the employees were friendly.
Here are the things I didn't like about 24 Hour Fitness:
- During prime time hours, you can only use the cardio equipment for 20 minutes and then you must get off. I think that is stupid, it should be first come, first serve.
- Because the fitness center is open 24 hours a day, the condition of the gym is always dirty and messy. Dumbells are never racked, paper towels/water bottels are everywhere, and the bathrooms are disgusting.
- Personal trainers in most of these facilities are terrible. The requirement to get a job at 24 Hour Fitness is completely below standard. Anyone with a heartbeat can get a job. 90% of fitness trainers at 24 Hour Fitness aren't certified. They are mostly 19-21 years old, extremely unprofessional, and the only knowledge they seem to posses about fitness is from a muscle magazine.
Overall, the majority of East Bay 24 Hour Fitness clubs are good clubs to join. Membership is cheap, they always have the latest equipment, and staff is friendly. They just lack knowledgeable fitness professionals to give good advice to its members.
*But I repeat do not waste money on their personal trainers, they are really terrible and bad representatives of what a fitness professional should be.
If you want serious fitness results from professionals that don't guess what they are doing with their clients, CLICK HERE watch this video.