Gyms I Have Known
I suspended my CrossFit membership. After several months of Zoom only classes that didn't interest me much, they reopened in May with a new cleaning regimen, restricted class sizes and required sign in. Those are all good and intentional steps, and I still wasn't going to go anywhere near a box during a pandemic. I kept my membership for a few months, but with no end in sight, it doesn't make sense to pay for it until I can go again. I hope that will be soon, as I really enjoy CrossFit and the people at the box. In fact, it's been sneaking all the way up the list of gyms I've belonged to number two in terms of time that I've belonged to the gym. Why yes, that does give me an excuse for another random list!
1. Great Plains Physical Therapy / Health South - Grand Forks, ND. When I first got started in football, my mother was rehabbing her knee from what I believe was the skiing injury. She was going to Great Plains Physical Therapy, which in addition to having physical therapists also was a very nice gym. I was very sporadically lifting weights at the high school, which was nearly completely inadequate for more than 2 people, and Mom asked if I wanted to join the gym.
I ended up lifting weights there from roughly eighth grade (maybe seventh grade) until I left for college. I lifted there inconsistently when I was at home the summer after freshman year of college, and twice a day six days week from September 2001 to January 2002 when I lived at home prior to OCS. I never paid a penny either, so a big belated thanks to Mom & Dad for that, as well as for driving me back and forth to the gym before I had my license. The name changed to Health South somewhere along the way, but even now it's mostly just Great Plains to me. A few of my high school classmates worked out there too.
This is the gym where I really learned to lift weights and work out. You got a free appointment with the trainers every two months of so, so Jay, Jeff, Cliff and other trainers switched me through an assortment of workouts. I never really switched my diet for most of that time so I never got cut, but I did get very strong. I threw up 550+ on the back squat at the start of my senior year of high school, and 600+ my first week of college football. In the run up to OCS one of the trainers, Jill, gave me a workout and diet plan to let me cut weight quickly so I could improve my running times. It worked.
It's also worth adding that Dad drove me to the gym a lot, and he figured that as long as he was driving me to the gym he might as well work out to, and he's been working out more or less ever since. Mom rehabbed her knee and never really went back.
2. Veale Fieldhouse - Cleveland, OH - I played football my freshman year of college. I lifted weights during the season at the weight room off the locker room or in Veale. My spring semester I lifted weights in Veale as part of my second required official "Phys Ed" class - football was the first, which means football was by far the hardest class I took in college. Anyway, a lot of my teammates (none of whom I'm close with now) were lifting with me, and one of the coaches was the teacher of record. This was the only time I was actually required to work out by anything more than my own sense of motivation.
Then I quit playing football, which was a good decision, and stopped working out for sophomore year, which was a terrible decision. In retrospect, that probably was one of the many reasons my mental health imploded my sophomore year - I went from working out three times a week for 6 years solid to doing almost nothing besides walking to class and playing a few intramurals.
3. Lexington Athletic Club - Lexington, KY - I lived in Lexington for 8 months while I was on co-op, May 1998 to December 1998. I hit the gym three times a week for eight months. It was a pretty good gym, as I recall, with similar free training appointments in the vein of Great Plains, albeit less skilled trainers. Co-op in general was an opportunity to get some R&D and de-stress. The gym was a big part of that.
4. 1:2:1 Fitness - Cleveland, OH - When I came back from co-op I figured I'd better keep working out, and thought I might keep at it if I was paying for it instead of going to Veale, which was free. I had a lot of money after co-op so I paid for the fancy gym used by the faculty. This got me back into the groove. They also used the free training model to set up workouts, which I found very useful. I lifted there pretty consistently from 1999 until I went home after graduation in September 2001. I also went there for a few years after I returned in May 2002, something along the lines of 2003-2005 or so. I went solidly from 2003-2004 when I lived across the street (often with Angie who was ayb2), and less frequently from 2004-2005.
5. Westlake Rec - Westlake, OH - My employer offers $300 a year in gym reimbursement currently, but when that perk was originally rolled out it just offered a free Westlake Rec center membership. I used it for two years. I don't recall the exact time period, but it was something like 2005-2007. I wasn't wild about the gym, or having to share the locker room with kids, or for that matter the numerous coworkers I ran into there. I also had to make up my own workouts since they didn't have trainers. Eventually, I just stopped caring.
6. Fitworks - Rocky River, OH - My ex and I joined Fitworks in 2009. I belonged for about 3.5 years or so, with varying consistency on how often I actually went. There were some long stretches where I was there all the time, and others when I didn't go. The gym had the virtue of being close to my house and nearly completely covered by my employer reimbursement, which made up for the fact that the trainers were pretty useless. I watched a lot of bad movies in their cardio room. Then they lost their lease to Whole Foods and moved to a less convenient location, and they weren't really good enough to keep going.
7. CrossFit Cleveland - Rocky River, OH - This was right across the street from the old Fitworks location. I started going in December 2014 in large part because I had a lot of friends who'd done CrossFit at other locations, and Audrey who was karassasou had gone there for a while and gave it rave reviews. I ended up going very consistently three times a week until the pandemic shut them down in March 2020. I loved the variety of the workout, and the camaraderie with the coaches and the other people working out.
As soon as it's safe to go back in my mind (or M's mind, as she's more paranoid than me), I'll return, and a year or two after that it'll move up to the top of my "time spent as member" list. And until then, there's the bike.
1. Great Plains Physical Therapy / Health South - Grand Forks, ND. When I first got started in football, my mother was rehabbing her knee from what I believe was the skiing injury. She was going to Great Plains Physical Therapy, which in addition to having physical therapists also was a very nice gym. I was very sporadically lifting weights at the high school, which was nearly completely inadequate for more than 2 people, and Mom asked if I wanted to join the gym.
I ended up lifting weights there from roughly eighth grade (maybe seventh grade) until I left for college. I lifted there inconsistently when I was at home the summer after freshman year of college, and twice a day six days week from September 2001 to January 2002 when I lived at home prior to OCS. I never paid a penny either, so a big belated thanks to Mom & Dad for that, as well as for driving me back and forth to the gym before I had my license. The name changed to Health South somewhere along the way, but even now it's mostly just Great Plains to me. A few of my high school classmates worked out there too.
This is the gym where I really learned to lift weights and work out. You got a free appointment with the trainers every two months of so, so Jay, Jeff, Cliff and other trainers switched me through an assortment of workouts. I never really switched my diet for most of that time so I never got cut, but I did get very strong. I threw up 550+ on the back squat at the start of my senior year of high school, and 600+ my first week of college football. In the run up to OCS one of the trainers, Jill, gave me a workout and diet plan to let me cut weight quickly so I could improve my running times. It worked.
It's also worth adding that Dad drove me to the gym a lot, and he figured that as long as he was driving me to the gym he might as well work out to, and he's been working out more or less ever since. Mom rehabbed her knee and never really went back.
2. Veale Fieldhouse - Cleveland, OH - I played football my freshman year of college. I lifted weights during the season at the weight room off the locker room or in Veale. My spring semester I lifted weights in Veale as part of my second required official "Phys Ed" class - football was the first, which means football was by far the hardest class I took in college. Anyway, a lot of my teammates (none of whom I'm close with now) were lifting with me, and one of the coaches was the teacher of record. This was the only time I was actually required to work out by anything more than my own sense of motivation.
Then I quit playing football, which was a good decision, and stopped working out for sophomore year, which was a terrible decision. In retrospect, that probably was one of the many reasons my mental health imploded my sophomore year - I went from working out three times a week for 6 years solid to doing almost nothing besides walking to class and playing a few intramurals.
3. Lexington Athletic Club - Lexington, KY - I lived in Lexington for 8 months while I was on co-op, May 1998 to December 1998. I hit the gym three times a week for eight months. It was a pretty good gym, as I recall, with similar free training appointments in the vein of Great Plains, albeit less skilled trainers. Co-op in general was an opportunity to get some R&D and de-stress. The gym was a big part of that.
4. 1:2:1 Fitness - Cleveland, OH - When I came back from co-op I figured I'd better keep working out, and thought I might keep at it if I was paying for it instead of going to Veale, which was free. I had a lot of money after co-op so I paid for the fancy gym used by the faculty. This got me back into the groove. They also used the free training model to set up workouts, which I found very useful. I lifted there pretty consistently from 1999 until I went home after graduation in September 2001. I also went there for a few years after I returned in May 2002, something along the lines of 2003-2005 or so. I went solidly from 2003-2004 when I lived across the street (often with Angie who was ayb2), and less frequently from 2004-2005.
5. Westlake Rec - Westlake, OH - My employer offers $300 a year in gym reimbursement currently, but when that perk was originally rolled out it just offered a free Westlake Rec center membership. I used it for two years. I don't recall the exact time period, but it was something like 2005-2007. I wasn't wild about the gym, or having to share the locker room with kids, or for that matter the numerous coworkers I ran into there. I also had to make up my own workouts since they didn't have trainers. Eventually, I just stopped caring.
6. Fitworks - Rocky River, OH - My ex and I joined Fitworks in 2009. I belonged for about 3.5 years or so, with varying consistency on how often I actually went. There were some long stretches where I was there all the time, and others when I didn't go. The gym had the virtue of being close to my house and nearly completely covered by my employer reimbursement, which made up for the fact that the trainers were pretty useless. I watched a lot of bad movies in their cardio room. Then they lost their lease to Whole Foods and moved to a less convenient location, and they weren't really good enough to keep going.
7. CrossFit Cleveland - Rocky River, OH - This was right across the street from the old Fitworks location. I started going in December 2014 in large part because I had a lot of friends who'd done CrossFit at other locations, and Audrey who was karassasou had gone there for a while and gave it rave reviews. I ended up going very consistently three times a week until the pandemic shut them down in March 2020. I loved the variety of the workout, and the camaraderie with the coaches and the other people working out.
As soon as it's safe to go back in my mind (or M's mind, as she's more paranoid than me), I'll return, and a year or two after that it'll move up to the top of my "time spent as member" list. And until then, there's the bike.