Friday, September 26, 2008

Bally's: Great Marketing, Blah Facilities

Last week Thursday, I walked into a Bally's facility and walked out with a membership. Soul-selling aside, I wasn't terribly impressed. I got the membership because they have two facilities that are close to where I live, which is better than anything else I'd have to drive out of the way for. I keep kicking myself now. The Gold's Gym that seemed too far away feels like such a better option. It was so much more open, prettier, had a much better kid's club, and isn't really out of the way on the route I'm taking to work now (it was before I knew about this route, which is why I didn't sign up then). The Bally's facilities are nothing like their marketing. It's a study in having great marketing people and bad interior designers. The interiors are closed-feeling and covered in dark paint, the kid's club requires a 24-hour advance sign-up and only has one supervisor (who appears to always be sitting at her desk), and the equipment is oldish and packed in too tightly. Not to mention that there isn't much choice in what kind of machine you use. I can handle that in a dinky gym like my last one, but even my gym prior to that had an arc trainer, stair mill, treadmills, steps, etc.

So, I've got the option of dropping that membership in two months. I may do so, but until then, I'm going to plug away at the place. I went to a TurboKick class this last week, which is a bit like kickboxing. I'll try the Kwando Strike class next week.

I should really stop complaining and just work out. I'm not back into my size 8 jeans yet after this summer, and while my endurance seems to be at an awesome level, my muscular strength is about zero (I haven't gotten to any weight training yet, just cardio- I'm easing back into things). I'm ready to whip myself back into shape!

1 comment:

Roder said...

Hey Carrie - not too sure what part of St. Paul you're in, but if you're near the Snelling/University intersection, there's a new LA Fitness that went up in July a couple blocks north on University. I joined up when it opened. The facility is really great, and as it's a new club, it's not too crowded (I'm there every weekday from 7-8am and there's about 6 people total when I'm there).

I used to belong to one of the Bally's (the one in Little Canada), but like you said, dark paint, crummy machines. I just didn't care for it at all. And so I stopped going.