Anyone belong to Golds? Just moved to a new city and thinking about joining. Any good or horror stories?
It's got a good variety of equipment, and most locations offer amenities such as pools, steam rooms, etc. A wide variety of inhabitants, but it gets goddamn awful when the NYR crowd rolls in.
They're decent for the price if you're going to use everything they have, but they're a nightmare to quit.
Lifted at Gold's for about a year. Good equipment and reasonably priced, but god awful during peak hours, especially with New Years coming up. I'd probably still belong there if I didnt move last year. Also >>35092933
is correct about how hard it is to quit. Pretty much a minimum 3 month process.
If you're new in town, the best thing to do is shop around for gyms. Try to compare hours, amenities and equipment in relation to monthly dues and how far it is from your work/school/home. When I moved I was gonna join the Gold's but then I found a 24 hour local gym that was closer to me and cheaper.
I had one that was literally a quarter mile from my house that was just in the middle of a neighborhood. When I finally decided to get /fit/, I walked over there with the intention of getting a year membership, only to find that they were bought out.
By a crossfit center.
Who want $130 a month to use their nonsense injury playground.
Fuck.
>>35092933
>They're decent for the price if you're going to use everything they have, but they're a nightmare to quit.
I don't understand this. How is it hard to quit?
26 a month with everything needed
Compared to these niggas paying like 50 bucks for shitty gyms
>>35092050
it's crowded
I go to the most crowded Golds in the D.C. metro area, Ballston Golds.
Just got back an hour ago. Crowded af - grimy and smelly in the basement - filled with talent - high test girls who'd prolly be the man in the relationship, hellz yeah, n' stuff.
depends on which one you go to. There are others in this area that are mostly empty
>>35093347
Can't speak for gold, but when I was trying to quit 24hr it was a 2 month process during which they charged me for multiple things from freezing my account, amenities, to an additional membership and repeatedly telling me they dealt with the situation when it turns out they didn't. Eventually everything go sorted, but damn.
>>35093507
Wow, that's completely alien to me. My gym I pay for my months up front and if I don't need it anymore, I just don't come back after my time is up. It would almost be best to get a prepaid Visa card to give them and when you want to quit, just close the card account down.
>>35092933
How much is the membership?
>>35093494
you should lift at balance gym, i love it.
>>35093675
It's probably made like that so they can cash the NYR fags, that will quit in 1st month anyway.
>>35092050
I've signed up for no-contract membership just to do occasional DL and visit a steam room there. But overall it looks not that bad as a main gym
The golds here in my area is nice but the equipment is a bit too close to each other. We got 2 squat racks and a power cage along with 2 incline benches, 1 decline bench, and 3 flat benches. They also recently started putting in some tires for tire flipping and they just brought in a safety squat bar and a trap bar.
>>35093690
Bump
>>35093449
this. had to leave mine because it was super small.
>>35093690
mine was about $35/mo, but charged bi-weekly. Fucking obnoxious.
>>35093347
They refused to close out the membership in the store, and directed me to a website with a shitty hard-to-find link to close the membership. After that, they still charged for another 2 months. I got calls though from a customer service rep though who actually read my exit survey though, and was able to fake concern about the shitty desk-jockeys they had up front being apathetic cunts when I said I wanted to close out my membership. Made me feel a bit better about it desu.
Now I'm at an Anytime Fitness, and only today had the first unpleasant experience there, and it was just because of some guy using the racks for about 45 min, and I missed my shot to get on them after he left and another dude came in to knock out some great squats. It was like 3pl8 and he had shredded legs, so I wasn't even mad, just 'mirin. I'll just do my BP tomorrow.
Pic related, mfw watching that guy knock out dem squats while I was hanging from the pull-up bars
>>35093745
That was my experience at Golds. You signed up for year long contracts which auto-renewed at like 10 months. I joined a few months before the NYR wave, and I was pleased to see how long some of them stuck around. It didn't get back to the regular numbers until late Feb/early March.
>>35095009
Tfw they are closing in my country. All the other gyms are crossfit or $80/mo
>>35095206
Golds or Anytime?
>>35093088
>$130 a month
jesus christ
being /homegym/ masterrace just got better
fuck
i've been going for a few months and my only complaint is the leg press machines only go up to 500 and the biggest plates are 45 lbs
>>35095237
Golds
>>35095239
What do you guys mean when you say "home gym"? I don't live in US and I'm not sure we have that where I live. Does that mean community gym or something?
>>35092050
It varies a LOT by location. When I was living in San Antonio I lived between two gyms (literally 2.5 and 3 miles away from my house) that were the same level. One had newer equipment, was well maintained, and the pool was always clean. The other was a rust bucket whose pool and sauna were always broken. Both were in nice areas.
The one I belong to now (College Station) has 4 platforms, 3 squat racks, only one Smith machine, and benches, barbells, and free weights as far as the eye can see. No pool, but it has a whirlpool and sauna and is overall very nice.
Like others have said, it's hell for most of January, though.
>>35095331
It means gym equipment inside your own home.
>>35095331
Literally buying a power rack and enough weight to crush your spine.
>>35093690
op here, the golds i was looking at was about 19 a month. theres a few in the city so i wouldn't mind having one by my apartment and another by my work.
I actually worked for a Gold's Gym for a while a few years ago. They're pretty standard, but it really depends on the franchise and who owns it. Some places will be a lot more basic, but cheaper. Some have a lot more amenities (sauna, tanning, pool, daycare, etc.) but will be correspondingly more expensive. Not a bad place, but not amazing either.
My advice is be careful when joining. A lot of the "managers" are actually professional salesmen that literally get paid to sell certain amounts of each membership per month. Just use common sense.
>>35097596
The ones around me are corporate ones. Are those typically better or worse than franchise?
>>35097623
Depends on what you mean by "corporate". Every Gold's reports to corporate, even the franchised ones. But the owners of a franchise have some freedom with setting prices and such. In general, I would say that a non-franchise gym will be average, it won't have an owner who's free to make it great, but it also won't have an owner who's shitty and just in it to scam people. So in general, I'd say that a more "corporate" gym would be a good thing.
Note that I'm only very familiar with the region I worked in (pacific northwest) and different places will work a little differently.
I live like 10 minutes away from Gold's North Hollywood and it's pretty good and they're chill about everything. I do only use it during winter break when my school gym is closed though. Rich Piana and Bradley Martyn are really common there too.
>>35093347
When I was a Gold's member they moved to a new location that sucked, and was further away. Wouldn't let me cancel. Then I was moving out of state, but to somewhere that was still within 25 miles of a Gold's gym, and they wouldn't let cancel. Motherfuckers. Real shitty Motherfuckers.
They're a typical gym though, once you get inside. A billion cardio machines that are 99% empty and a cramped free weight section. Plenty of Nautilus machines to waste your life on though.
>>35098055
op here, I'm coming from a planet fitness :(
