Sunday, March 28, 2010

Choosing the right gym

The first step to improve your health is choosing the right gym, don’t give me wrong there are many places you could exercise such as in the park, walking around, playing sports in your community, but if you really want to see changes, there is no place like the gym where you see dramatic changes. The gym has all equipment you’ll ever need such as dumbbells, barbells(free weights) cardio machines, medicine balls, rows, benches, squat racks, etc. I could go to the gym a whole year and do something different every day. Not saying that you shouldn’t exercise outside the gym. In the contrary you should always look for a opportunity to exercise even at your house but I think you will benefit a lot from a gym membership.

So that leads to the question of how to choose the right gym for you, here I post some tips you should consider:

Price- I am pretty sure that’s everyone’s main concern MONEY!!! Most gym memberships in the United States go from 30-35 dollars monthly range in the popular gyms such as Bally’s, L.A fitness, Gold’s gym. It may sound expensive, but see it this way, you are only paying one dollar daily, one dollars for all services they provide, it’s a good deal in my eyes. If you can afford to pay for internet, cable, some people I know pay more than 100 dollars in their phone bill, I am pretty sure you can afford to spend some 30 dollars in YOUR health which should always be your main concern.

Also, you could always check for specials, family memberships, join your friend’s membership, etc

Environment- before you join, check out the place, check if the place is clean, do they provide all the equipment you need? Make sure they have enough cardio machines, dumbbells, and barbells. Also
if you interested in swimming do they provide a swimming pool. Stem room or sauna if you like relaxing after a exhausting training. Be sure that the people is friendly in the gym, and the stuff is willing to help you out with any concern. Don’t join until you feel the place satisfies your needs. How crowded it is, you don’t want to feel you are in Disney, making a huge line to use a machine during peak hours right

Variety- A side note never join a gym where the maximum dumbbells is 65 pounds, trust me one day you will be stronger than me and be able to carry a 100 pounds dumbbell especially the guys that want to be strong and BIG. Also check they have enough variety of machines to work every single muscle especially squat racks, bench press (inclined and declined), leg press machines, cardio machines etc. In my next article I would write more about gym equipment.

Lockers and showers- of course you need a place where to leave your stuff such as your sport bag, your cell phone, etc you don’t want to be carrying everything around the gym. It just doesn’t make sense to join a club where they don’t provide lockers. Showers, common sense even if you don’t like showering in the gym, it might come handy some day, if you need to go to a date from the gym, don’t want to be all sweaty ha?

To be continued…..