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Your turn: National chain or local charm?

Posted on Feb 23rd 2008 10:27AM by Martha Edwards

Filed Under: Your Turn

The gym I workout at is small and locally-run. Overall, I'm pretty happy with it, aside from a few drawbacks--crappy magazine selection, 70s-style purple and orange carpet, to name a few--and while the equipment isn't exactly state of the art, I'm happier with it than I was with the large brand-name gym I used to go to.

Why? Well, it's cheaper, it's more convenient, there's always parking and no one bugs me about signing up for personal training or other add-on services.

A recent-ish study from Consumer Reports found that I'm not alone--generally, people tend to favour local gyms instead of national chain ones. What do you think?

What kind of gym do you prefer?
I like having all the amenities of a large, brand-name gym	23 (17.3%)
I like the friendly feel of my locally-run gym	34 (25.6%)
I don't care as long as it's close to home	45 (33.8%)
I don't go to gyms	23 (17.3%)
Other -- Tell us in the comments	8 (6.0%)

(via Crabby McSlacker)

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3 Comment

Tags: amenities, brand-name, chain, fitness, friendly, gym, independent, local, workout

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

bob sakamano 2-23-2008 @ 12:38PM

People favor the cleanest/closest/cheapest place to their residence.

I think the convienence factor is probably one of the biggest influences on where people workout.

Whether its national or not doesn't matter as long as those three factors are fullfilled.

rrr 2-23-2008 @ 12:31PM

I agree with Bob in that it doesn't matter whether it's a chain or not if the requirement factors are met.
For me though, the three factors are cleanliness, atmosphere, and whether any of the classes I like will fit my schedule.
Of course, I live in a fairly small city so convenience isn't too much of an issue.

Ingue86 2-24-2008 @ 7:02PM

I prefer the gyms on college campus. I am currently a student, and here at Georgia Tech, we have a great state of the art athletic area, which has everything I would ever use. Sometimes it's good to be in college.