Picking the right gym for you is essential to your gym experience. If you pick a gym that doesn’t suit your wants and needs you will lose all motivation and discipline to go the gym consistently. The goal of this article is to help you choose the best gym FOR YOU. I will go over the top 6 commercial gyms in the USA and explain the prices of each, their amenities, their reputations, and how many locations they have both domestically and internationally.
Equinox
Equinox is known as a high-price, high-class gym. Everything they have is state of the art. With your membership you are guaranteed unlimited free in person classes, one free fitness assessment and one free personal training session. Luxuries like saunas, steam rooms, indoor and outdoor swimming pools, showers and locker rooms are all included in equinox gyms. Depending on the location they may also have indoor and outdoor swimming pools, basketball courts, rock climbing walls, and tennis courts.
Equinox has over 300 locations in the USA and also has a few global locations located in London, Toronto, and Vancouver. If you are someone that has to travel a lot for work this can be semi-convenient for you; however, it is not the best commercial gym for someone with a vigorous travel schedule.
Equinox tends to be closed between 9PM and 5AM (depending on location). If you’re a late night gym goer or early morning gym rat, this might not be the best option for you.
Pricing: Prices do vary by location. See tables below.
Single-Club Access
| Initiation Fee | $100.00 |
| Monthly Fee | $168.00-$205.00 (dependent on location) |
| Annual Fee | $0.00 |
Multi-Club Access
| Initiation Fee | $100.00 |
| Monthly Fee | $230.00-$270.00 (dependent on location) |
| Annual Fee | $0.00 |
Lifetime Fitness
Lifetime Fitness, like Equinox, is also a state of the art, high-class and high-priced gym. In contrast to Equinox, it tends to be a little more affordable. With your membership you will be able to use their many amenities. They all have saunas, steam rooms, locker rooms, and showers. They also tend to have indoor and outdoor swimming pools, basketball courts, rock climbing walls, and tennis courts depending on the location.
Lifetime Fitness has less locations worldwide than Equinox. It has 174 US locations and 3 locations in Canada.
Lifetime Fitness tends to be a 24/7 gym, however some do close late at night so check your location’s times prior to signing up.
Pricing: Prices do vary by location. See tables below.
Single-Club Access
| Initiation Fee | $49.00 |
| Monthly Fee | $72.00-219.00 (dependent on location) |
| Annual Fee | $0.00 |
Multi-Club Access
| Initiation Fee | $49.00 |
| Monthly Fee | $79.00-269.00 (dependent on location) |
| Annual Fee | $0.00 |
24 Hour Fitness
24 hour Fitness‘ main selling point is that it is open 24 hours and is cheaper than its Lifetime Fitness and Equinox counterparts. Unfortunately, there are a few locations that actually aren’t 24 hours so be sure to check out your location’s gym. 24 Hour Fitness gyms also typically have many great amenities. This includes basketball courts, racquet ball courts, swimming pools, classes, and saunas.
24 Hour fitness has nearly 300 gym locations located in 11 states and is not international.
Pricing: Prices do vary by location. See tables below.
Regional (50 mile radius) – Club Access
| Initiation Fee | $0.00 |
| Monthly Fee | $51.99 |
| Annual Fee | $49.00 |
National-Club Access
| Initiation Fee | $0.00 |
| Monthly Fee | $56.99 |
| Annual Fee | $49.00 |
Anytime Fitness
Anytime Fitness is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. This gym is best for those who want to solely lift weights and have a cardio station. They tend to not have any amenities except for showers and they rarely have locker rooms except for an open cubby space.
What differentiates this gym from the rest is that it has so many locations both internationally and worldwide. It has over 2300 locations in the US and over 2000 more worldwide. If you are a big traveller, you will not find a better gym everywhere you go. Each membership also includes access to all gyms.
Pricing: Prices do vary by location. See tables below.
Anytime Fitness Global Membership
| Initiation Fee | $49.99 |
| Key-Fob Fee | $35.00 |
| Monthly Fee | $39.00 |
| Annual Fee | $49.99 |
LA Fitness
LA Fitness tends to be one of the best bang for your buck gym. It has many different membership options which you can look at below. It’s amenities vary by location. Some may include saunas, steam rooms, an indoor swimming poo, basketball courts along with showers and locker rooms. Some may also include none of the above mentioned amenities. Check with your club’s location to see what your LA Fitness offers.
LA Fitness has over 500 locations in the US and 31 locations in Canada (with 28 of those locations in Ontario).
LA Fitness times vary by location but tend to be open between 5AM and 10PM.
Pricing: Prices do vary by location. See tables below.
Single-Club Access
| Initiation Fee | $0.00 |
| Monthly Fee | $29.95 |
| Annual Fee | $0.00 |
Option A Multi-Club Access
| Initiation Fee | $99.00 |
| Monthly Fee | $29.95 |
| Annual Fee | $0.00 |
Option B Multi-Club Access
| Initiation Fee | $49.00 |
| Monthly Fee | $34.95 |
| Annual Fee | $0.00 |
Option C Multi-Club Access
| Initiation Fee | $0.00 |
| Monthly Fee | $39.55 |
| Annual Fee | $0.00 |
Planet Fitness
Planet Fitness is the cheapest and most affordable gym there is. Cheap prices however tends to attract a different type of crowd then you may want at a gym. Planet Fitness’ do tend to have locker rooms and showers. Most Planet Fitness gyms only have free weight dumbbells up to 75lbs and also don’t have power racks used commonly for free weight bench press and free weight squats. They also don’t have deadlift platforms.
Planet Fitness is notorious for their lunk alarms. These lunk alarms are loud sirens that go off when a member grunts too hard or drops a weight too hard. The point of it is to discourage intimidating new lifters in a “judgement free” zone. In my opinion it actually does the opposite as you are constantly worrying about setting off this loud lunk alarm for the whole gym to hear.
Many Planet Fitness gyms are open 24 hours.
I would highly suggest looking elsewhere for a gym. Planet Fitness is the cheapest option however there is a reason for that.
Pricing: Prices do vary by location. See tables below.
No Commitment Single-Club Access (cancel anytime)
| Initiation Fee | $15.00 |
| Monthly Fee | $15.00 |
| Annual Fee | $39.00 |
12 Month Commitment Single-Club Access
| Initiation Fee | $10.00 |
| Monthly Fee | $10.00 |
| Annual Fee | $39.00 |
No Commitment All-Clubs Access (cancel anytime)
| Initiation Fee | $1.00 |
| Monthly Fee | $22.99 |
| Annual Fee | $39.00 |
What I think
I have been a member at 2 of the above 6 clubs – Lifetime Fitness and Anytime Fitness. Lifetime Fitness is a luxury and well worth the price in my opinion. I played basketball for my cardio, the people were incredibly friendly and the machines and free weights were always in top condition. Having said that, if a cheaper alternative – like LA Fitness – was near me and had basketball courts I would choose LA Fitness over Lifetime due to the difference in price.
Anytime Fitness is my current gym and I love it. Due to the smaller size of this gym, it has a real family type vibe to it. You get to know the staff and the members well as they tend to go at the same time which helps you feel more comfortable as you lift. Most Anytime Fitness gyms have all the free weights, machines, and cardio equipment you need however it doesn’t have amenities like saunas and sports courts that other high-end gyms tend to have. For me, this is all I really need and I love working out at my Anytime Fitness.
Be sure to give whichever gym you choose a trial run first and see how you like it before signing up for a membership. Remember, the gym you choose can make or break your fitness experience.
Now that you know how to pick a gym be sure to check out my previous article on how to DOMINATE your first day at the gym.
