62nd and Broadway

Note to self:  don't workout right after you land at the airport...cause your workout will be short and pointless.

Not a fan of this location.  Easily located from the Columbus Circle subway stop, you have to walk two -- not one -- flights downstairs, into the depths of NYC's cellar, to go to the locker rooms.  No natural light, small workout spaces, and cramped hallways make this an undesirable workout facility.  The weight room was an OK size but seemed to be missing a lot of machines; this was until I realized they were spread out all over the place.  I looked like a parent searching for their lost kid at a Chuck E Cheese when I needed to do some stationary exercises (tip: these devices are near the spinning room).  I went during a slow time, but after work I can only imagine how crowded this gym gets.  And no one wants to stretch next to giant barrels of dirty towels...

They DO have squash for any Wall Street types who want to play their friends while chatting about the newest investment plan designed to fail.


The locker room was HUGE, which was great!  Lots of lockers and showers, but contrary to the website there is NO steam room!  Lame.  And the sauna?  Broken.  wtf?

My grade: C

Cleveland Sports Clubs?

Going on vacation, posts when I return.  Give me a few days.

41st Street - Theatre District

OK first off, I drank a Spike Energy Drink on my way to this club.  BAD IDEA.  I felt like an ADHD kid at the waterworks playzone in Disneyland and was having trouble concentrating.

I arrived at this location and was turned off immediately.  However I warmed up INSTANTLY when the first person I saw was h-o-t.  Unfortunately this was the only hot person at the entire club; I felt like I was working out with tourists and their moms.

The gym isn't bad though.  Low ceilings (I kept thinking the guy on the eliptical machine in front of me was going to get a concussion on the vent above him...the suspense made my treadmill run go by much faster), and three floors.  First floor: lots of cardio, very cool temp, and stretching areas.  Bottom floor: studios, and tiny stretching area -- this floor is, well, grim and tiny.  Second floor: TONS of machines, very small free-weight area, and another small stretching area (extra points!).

Locker rooms were large, many showers, sauna and steam room and in OK shape.  However, the only place I could find towels was the front desk.  -1500 points (if the towel service and I were in a relationship this would be a dealbreaker.  Like martini-in-your-face and "please delete my number" dealbreaker).  This is completely inconvenient and, not to continue to be immature about it, stupid.

Grade: B

49th and Broadway

Instead of going back and reviewing all of the other clubs I have been to, I will begin when my marathon started -- today.

This club was OK, but a little confusing for me.  It's in a hotel on the 15th floor of the building (I looked lost) and is deceiving at first.  The pool (it has a POOL!) is on the first (15th?) floor and everything else is downstairs.  I didn't know this and used the upstairs locker room.  Whoops.  This is the smaller locker room that is probably meant just for the people using the pool (AHH pool!).  It was also...gross.  Wet floors, broken curtains, no paper towels for your hands...ugh.

Downstairs was much nicer.  LOTS of space, very large weight area.  This location, however, was fairly warm (ew) and the lighting was DE-pressing.  I felt like I was in a dark warehouse.  I noticed a few machines were broken, but it didn't impede my workout.

P.S.  Very gay.

My grade: B+

home gym - 23rd and Park

My home gym is the ultra-straight, 23rd Street and Park Ave South location.  I love this gym.  It's small, sure, but nice!  The attendants work hard to keep it clean, and the re-design is crisp.

First floor is treadmills, natural lighting and open space.  Bottom floor is weights, a little small but plenty of mirrors.  Top floor is elipticals, stretching (PLENTY of stretching! extra points), express line, and the studios.

Locker room is a decent size for the gym, very very clean, and the showers have the largest stalls of any NYSC I have been to (not many...yet).  Instead of curtains this location has frosted doors.  Sauna, no steam room (boo).

I give this club an A.

The first day

Let's start here: I have no place blogging.  None.  Nope.  Not a writer, not creative, and not remotely interesting.

My roommate told me to.

This is why I'm here: I need new motivation to stay in shape and keep achieving my health goals.  I'm a member of New York Sports Club and go to the same club each and every day during my lunch break at work.  I have only visited 4 of the Manhattan locations and yesterday, while I was acting as a substitute workout buddy for a new friend (he did very little working out, mind you...), I realized I should be taking advantage of the variety of clubs.  It seemed to be great motivation to 1) continue to workout more regularly than just lunch breaks and 2) clear my after work schedule to commit to the gym (aka less bar-crawls, more gym-crawls).

So here we are.