Gym alternatives

I hope everyone has had a good week!  For some reason, the week has felt really long for me.  But I'm glad it's finally Friday!  And I'm taking the opportunity to join up with Fairytales and Fitness for their Friday link up to talk about alternatives to the gym.

I've mentioned before that the branch of the gym that was closest to me closed at the end of December. The good news is that there are still three other branches relatively close.  But I've explored the other branches and haven't loved them.  2 of them don't seem great about upkeep.  The third one is really nice but it's just a little bit further and parking isn't as easy there.  So I'm contemplating whether to make some changes.  Here are some things I'm considering.

1.  Continue with the same gym membership and just suck it up.  I can go to the nice branch and it's really not that far.  It's 20-25 minutes instead of 10 minutes away.  I do like that they have a variety of fitness classes as well as being able to use the treadmill or the elliptical.

2.  Put together a home gym.  We could look into getting a treadmill or maybe a peleton bike for the house.  Mike said that all he uses the gym for is the treadmill anyway.  He doesn't use any of the classes.  And there are plenty of yoga and strength training videos I've found online that I can use that for my extra workouts.  The advantage with this option of course is that you can't beat the convenience of being able to work out in your own home!  It would be nice to be able to just go to the basement and not have to worry about driving to the gym.  But I might miss the option of the classes.

 

I did enjoy the peleton the couple times I tried it at hotel gyms

3.  The third option is look into studio classes.  I enjoyed the Zengo classes I was taking for a while and there is a new Orange Theory Fitness studio coming to my town.  The advantage here would be variety and the fun classes.  But the disadvantage would be that I would be tied to the studio's class schedule and couldn't work out at a time it was most convenient for me.  Also, I wouldn't really have a treadmill available when I just needed to get in a run during bad weather.  Plus, it would be a more expensive option if both of us wanted to do this.

 

I also really liked the fun classes at Zengo

I could also do a combination of 2 and 3, I guess.  We could set up a home gym and then I could just pay for an individual class when I was craving some sort of group fitness option.  I tend not to really do classes when I'm training for a race anyway and do them more often when I'm not training.  And I don't know that Mike would be interested in the classes.

But the good news is that I have plenty of time to decide.  There's no rush and the gym option works fine for now.  I want to research all the options that are out there before really deciding.  If you've set up a home gym, I'd love to learn about how you decided and what you outfitted the gym with!