I’m currently looking for a gym in Columbia, South Carolina.
As I sadly reported on Monday, I’m leaving my current gym (Better Body Fitness) in Elgin as my family is moving closer to downtown Columbia.
I hate leaving Better Body Fitness, but the drive is simply too far from our new house. And, as someone said a few days ago, if I don’t find a gym before I move I might be too busy to find one once we arrive at the new house. I could foresee going a week or two without the gym. That’d be bad for progress.
That being said, my new gym needs to have the following:
- Membership under $50 a month
- Wide selection of cardio equipment (elliptical is a must!)
- Late hours, open until at least 11 PM
Does anybody live in Columbia and have any suggestions? Anything I should lookout for when joining a gym? While I might have lost a lot of weight, I’m not very experienced in joining gyms and knowing what to look for/avoid.
{ 18 comments… read them below or add one }
I don’t live in the area, but look for something with a pool. Swimming laps is awesome exercise and low impact in case you ever get injured or are feeling especially sore. Just a thought. Are there any YMCAs in your area? Those are cheap and good for the family programs as well.
I am really considering joining the ymca, I am going to take a tour of one next week.
Idea for you- if the monhtly fee is more than your budget of $50– ask for a discount and use your website as advertisement. Let them know all the press you’ve been getting, hits ea. day, and that you will promote their gym, to receive the discounted price.
Worth a shot.
I’ve got a good friend in Columbia. I’ll ask her for gym recommenations.
Sorry Tyler. I don’t live in your area. I go to Planet Fitness for only $10 a month – a complete STEAL – but I checked and there are none by you. :-(
I am a memeber at the YMCA… most of them have memberships that allow you to go to more than one (if there are others in the area) – which is very helpful for me. I work downtown Bham Alabama … so I go to that Y during my lunch hour and work out several times a week and then I go to my local branch in Pelham on the way home after work the rest of the week and on the weekends. You also tend to get a wider variety of programs that way as well. I LOVE the programs offered there also. I am IN LOVE with all of the Body classes offered by Les Mills… I do Body Jam, Body Combat, Body Pump, Body Step… they have helped me tremendously with my journey. Thanks again for being such an inspiration on the weight loss AND the blogging… I have just started my blog – but I think I am going to like it =) Come on over and say Hi sometime! http://www.attitudeoverpounds.blogspot.com Good luck with your search!!
I love my Anytime Fitness. They are nationwide, and open 24-7. I was skeptical about what I would find, but it has a very nice selection of cardio, machines, and free weights. The best parts are that you can go anytime (duh), use any of their facilities, and its only $35 a month!
Make sure to look at the equipment too. My old apartment gym had ellipticals that did have any moving arms. The gym didn’t cost me anything, but it was still annoying knowing that I could be getting a much better workout with better equipment.
Don’t know whether this is conveniently located, but city parks and recreation departments are usually a GREAT deal! Take a look at this one in your new city:
http://www.columbiasc.net/parksandrec/206
Oops, looks like it’s only open until 10:00 most nights. Still, sounds like a good deal to me if it’s located in a good spot for you.
I love my Anytime Fitness. 24hrs a day, couldn’t be easier.
There are some in your area too..
http://www.anytimefitness.com/en-us/locate/list/SC
BTW.. Found your blog and got inspired.. Thanks
I don’t live in your area, nor do I use a commercial gym.
I use my city’s Parks and Recreation Recreation Center. It’s pretty nice, with the exception they close at 9pm week nights, 8 on Saturdays, and 6 on Sundays. The good is that they have a bunch of cardio machines, weights machines, free weights, a lap pool and tons of free classes. And it’s also less than a mile from where I live.
The Y might be a good place to check if you really want to save money, but most gym memberships seem to cost around the same as one adult membership at the P&R center. The only really crazy thing seems to be the initiation fees and whatnot that big “real” gyms carry.
Good luck finding your new gym.
If your wife is still thinking about joining the gym, she might want to go and make sure that she doesn’t have any weird experiences. You mentioned that was one of her reservations. I hate to say it: even if a woman is average looking there is something about exercising and being hot and sweaty that apparently encourages some men to stare, gawk, whistle, which can be uncomfortable. I’m not saying *all* men do this, or even most, but it takes only a few creepy guys for a woman to feel uneasy.
Gold’s Gym is building a brand new facility on Forest Dr. down the street from their current location (former Columbia Athletic gym). I am pretty sure the membership fee is under $50. The new gym will be very nice. I prefer Hampton Hills Athletic myself, but it doesn’t fit your requirements. Good luck.
Another vote here to Anytime fitness. They’re a franchise and the membership is national. This was a big plus for me in case I need to hit the gym. It’s cheap too, only $65/mo for the woman and I. And it’s 24/7 as I like to go weird hours (anytime I get the urge)
My wife and I joined the YMCA with a family membership. What makes this an especially cool deal is that although our CLOSEST YMCA location has just a fitness room with treadmills and elliptical machines, it also gets us into the bigger YMCA location that has the two pools and the climbing wall.
I’ve been doing the elliptical, and I’ve started raising the resistances… I can see how you just feel like you need more :)
We just joined a new Gold’s Gym in our area. I highly recommend you take a look at the one another reader mentioned they are building near you. They put all new (and very nice) equipment in the new gyms. Our dues are $25 and $21 dollars per month for my husband and I. We joined them instead of Anytime because they had: child care (so we can work out together!), a pool, personal trainers, cardio classes, yoga, etc. Having a buddy is a huge motivation in all this because it keeps it fun. The more variety you can find in a gym, the better. I know this makes me sound like a total geek but two of my favorite features there are the cardio cinema (a movie theater full of ellipticals, treadmills and bikes) and the fact that all the other cardio equipment outside the theater has jacks for ipods.
One more thing about Golds – as far as cost, they are pretty flexible. If you hem and haw about the price, the fees start coming off. They waived the $150 “setup fee” and lowered our rate from $35/$25 to $25/$21. It’s just like buying a car, it seems.
another vote for anytime fitness. no frills, discounts for 2d member (and 3rd, etc). ours does free months for referrals too! don’t pay the new member fee, they will always waive it!
My sister lives in Cola and she belongs to the JCC, http://www.jcccolumbia.org/, not sure if that is close to you or not. Does the University have a community center that you could access?