strengthstudent what gym do you work at in atlanta? I live in douglasville(not too far from ATL if you dont know where it is, about 20 minutes west on I-20) and could use an actual hardcore gym to workout at. what do you guys have there?
oh sorry i didnt see your post to liquidmercury. i may check that place out when i come home for the summer, im gettin ready to go back to college now. back to the world of a massive gym that gives you funny looks if you grunt a little bit from straining on a squat…
anyways, PM me some directions if you dont mind man. that sounds really awesome.
[quote]trip821 wrote:
I am curious as to how much one would be willing to pay each month to go to a small, but fully equipped hard core gym; loaded with power lifting, strongman, and olympic lifting gear and functioning as a place for athletes to train as well.
The most profitable gyms today appears to be geared toward personal training for the upper class stay at home mother. The large commercial gyms today seem to want to push out any lifters whos’ routine may be disruptive to the others. For example a golds gym I trained at removed the olympic/bumper plates to discourage dead lifting, their words were, quote: people have been getting a little carried away dead lifting. end quote.
I have checked out some cross fit gyms, but it is designed for cross fitters; it is not geared for serious power lifters, strongmen, or olympic lifters.
So my question is how much would you be willing to pay each month to train at a fully equipped facility that actually encouraged lifters to bail on a clean and press, has room for indoor sled pulling, prowler pushing and tire flips, not only had bands/chains, but racks with band rods (so you do not have to wrap the band around a dumbbell), reverse hyper and GHR machine, maintained a truly heavy and complete dumbbell set, had logs and farmers walk bar, etc.
In addition to how much you would be willing to pay each month, I am curious as to how much you pay each month now for what type of services and what your location is.
I am from Suffolk County on Long Island, pay $160 a month for mma and $50 a month of a generic gym membership. I would be more then willing to pay around $100 a month for a gym membership similar to what I described above in addition to the $160 I pay for the mma. [/quote]
Don’t pay for a gym with loads of fancy equipment pay for the gym with the strongest, smartest people in it.
I can save you some time; don’t do it.
The amount of people in your area willing to pay $60/mo plus for this type of gym is not large enough to support it. I have financed many deals like this and I’m telling you over 70% of them fail.
If you want to open a gym start something that will draw a membership base and have a space or room for yourself. The LA Boxing model is a great concept and people pay 100/mo for this. My wife recently told me about a place called purre barr, dues are 200/mo! People are paying 100/mo plus for corepower yoga. The money is out there, just not for a hardcore gym.
On a side note, I’d pay 100/mo plus for the type of gym we train at. Thankfully for me, the dues are only 35/mo.
Was paying 35 bucks a month before I moved to Columbus
Jason
I started paying $25/month for both my wife and I, at a former Powerhouse. Has all the equipment I would ever want to use.
to the op. world gym in west babylon has a contingent of powerlifters that train thre, mono, ghr, multiple racks 200lb db’s…think the rates 25$ a month.
i just found an underground powerlifting, olympic, mma gym in northern va. it’s a key club- meaning you get your own keyless entry pass and can go whenever you want. it cost $50 a month and that’s just a month to month membership. here’s a vid i took the other day. simply awesome and only 10 members.
When I was going to a gym where everyone there followed the Westside Barbell template and they had a reverse hyper and all of the Westside equipment, it was $50 a month. I would’ve continued there, but it was an hour away.
Right now, I lift at a small gym that’s been open 37 years. It’s connected to an old building supply store. The owner is a former powerlifter who used to be Bill Kazmaier’s training partner, and Kaz trained in the gym a bunch. I guess they used to have a lot of powerlifters training there back in the day, but now there’s never anyone there. There’s a keypad on the front door with a combo you punch in to get in, so you can go in anytime 24/7. No one works in there and most of the time, no one else is there but me. It only costs $100 for an entire year and has a SSB, cambered bar, fat bar and all the other shit I need that most gyms have.
It’s pretty much a perfect set-up for me. If I was training in gear, it might be more important to me to have other lifters to train with. Right now though, I have no reason to travel just to train with other people when I can do the exact same things on my own closer to home and for less money. Also, I get to bring a little boom box that plays my ipod in when I lift, so I can listen to whatever I want as loud as I want. I prefer that to most training partners.
[quote]UrbanSavage wrote:
I have no reason to travel just to train with other people when I can do the exact same things on my own closer to home and for less money. Also, I get to bring a little boom box that plays my ipod in when I lift, so I can listen to whatever I want as loud as I want. I prefer that to most training partners. [/quote]
Strong training partners help you far more than safety squat bars and cambered bars, if you train on your own you are making things harder for yourself.
[quote]biglifter wrote:
$3,500. Buy everything in one month, build an awesome home gym, equivalent to $7.30/month for a 40 year membership, music never sucks, get strong, be awesome.[/quote]
Are you thinking power rack, 600lbs free weight, swiss ball, bench, and a home-made reverse hyper? All from craigs list or something like that. Maybe a cambered or SSB.
Well I pay $25 a month with no contract or sign-up fee.
It doesn’t have logs or the reverse hyper but it has everything else you mentioned. The powerlifting group, Bad Attitude Gym, trains there (I started training with them a week ago). Several of them are Elite level including Henry Thomason and Jason Coker.
The funny thing about the place is it’s primarily an indoor soccer facility, but it has a weight room off to the side. Its funny seeing the looks on the faces of the skinny soccer guys when they see the powerlifters.
$29 for the gym that is Strongman/PL oriented
It’s tough to do something like this without already having a team of guys to bring in. Most hardcore powerlifters and strongman guys have a place to train, there might not be something like this in your area because you don’t have the lifters to support it.
I’ve trained at two really great gyms in my short powerlifting career.
Frantz gym is about as hardcore as you will ever find. 4 monolifts, piles of weight, kilo plates, benches, good bars, and great lifters to train with.
Dozens of world champions have come out of this gym, and love him or hate him, Ernie is a legend in the sport.
$30 a month
Jakked HArdcore Gym
Doesn’t have the calibre of lifters that Frantz does… some strong guys… but not a world beating team. What they do have is the best facility I have ever seen. The owner plays nothing but metal, he’s a great guy and has done some powerlifting and a lot of strongman and bodybuilding.
The gym has 2 monolifts, 3 competition benches, a reverse hyper, half a ton of chains, bands, racks, plus a full commercial-style gym with dumbbells and machines… and a whole back 2 rooms of strongman apparatus. more than a half-dozen logs, fingal fingers, anchor chains, tires through 800#, prowlers, sleds, power stairs, kettlebells… everything
$60 a month for both my wife and I… that’s $30 each again.
Both gyms are an hour or so west of Chicago…