Quick Review of Gold’s Gym, Orange Theory Fitness and Goodlife Fitness

Since I have been back home in Regina for the summer, I have been crazy enough to have three gym memberships… this is kind of by accident, but either way I am taking advantage of the situation and using this summer to achieve my fitness goals! People ask me all the time about my preferences regarding the three and here is a quick summary:

Gold’s Gym:

I have gone to Gold’s for seven years now, mainly because I remain a dedicated attendee of the Les Mills classes. I absolutely love them! There are many to choose from. I change it up all the time and go to Centurgy (a combination of yoga and pilates), Power (weight lifting class), kick (kickboxing/regular boxing), blast (step class) and Active (combination of half step class and half weight class). They also have Zumba and a couple other classes I have yet to try. Some of these classes can burn up to 750 calories! They challenge and motivate me to work much harder than I ever would by myself. The rest of the gym is very nice too, which includes a woman’s section if you are intimidated by the huge weight-lifting men, or are having a bad hair day and don’t want to see anyone… . There are individual TV’s on all the cardio equipment, and the North building has a Gym Star Pro shop within it if you are feeling like treating yourself to some workout clothes, or snacks.

Goodlife Fitness:

Goodlife is new to Regina and is a huge facility! Much bigger than Gold’s, but extremely similar.  It has almost the exact same classes as Gold’s, just with different names. Although I was disappointed there were less scheduled classes with instructors, making it difficult to plan to get to many, they have a virtual pull down projector screen in which you can put on any one of their classes whenever you want as long there is no scheduled classes going simultaneously. It is open 24 hours a day, so you can do a weight class at 2 in the morning if your heart really desires! It has free massage chairs at the front, which is also awesome!!!  The last critique I have is for such a new beautiful facility, is that they only have a limited number of TV’s up front with set channels that everyone has to watch. You do not have control over your own TV, which makes it harder for me to go on the cardio machines.

Both Goodlife and Gold’s offer:

– Personal training (extra $$)

– Water massage beds (extra $$)

– Sauna

Orange Theory Fitness:

After watching an intriguing video demonstrating the unique procedure and objectives of the this gym, I signed up for a free 7 day pass and have been going back ever since! It is such a fun bootcamp-like hour of training that pushes me to reach my goals. Each person has a strap cinched around their chest with a pod attached at the level of your sternum. It measures your heart rate which is portrayed on two monitors above the equipment for your own observation. It takes into account your weight and height to display your calories burned, and will light up different colours to show you how hard you are working and how hard you should be pushing to get your body working at the specific level required. Everyone is different, so it is nice to see how you burn calories and what you need to work on. One half of the class is on the “floor” using TRX bands, weights, body weight, rowers, benches, and ab machines, while the other half is on the treadmill. I learned that I burn more calories if I start off with the “floor”, and move to treadmill after, with the cardio from the treadmill burning the most calories for me. Other people are different. I sign up for an hour long session once a week at least to get my butt into gear, especially on the treadmill since I have difficulty pushing myself. The coaches are really great, and every class is different. The only critique I really have is that it is really expensive – starting at $79 dollars for four classes/month and only goes up from there!! Also, I would use it as a secondary to another gym since you can only book classes, you can not go and use the machines at your own free will.