Club Consideration
Submitting is not listing. Every club put forward is assessed against the bar below, and most are not listed — that is what makes the ones that are worth something. It is free, there is no placement to buy, and nothing about paying for an enhanced page changes this.
What we look for
- The Room
- Built for training and maintained like it matters — light, air, floor, finish. Enough space per member that the floor works at six o'clock, not just at eleven in the morning.
- The Equipment
- Current, serviced, and deep enough that nobody queues. Plate-loaded and free weights as well as machines, from the makers who actually serve this end of the market.
- The Coaching
- Credentialed staff on the floor rather than a rate card by the door. Somebody qualified is present and looking at how people are moving.
- The Amenities
- Proper changing rooms, towels, showers that work. Where the format implies recovery — sauna, steam, plunge, treatment — it is there and it is looked after.
- The Service
- Somebody answers the phone. Somebody knows your name. The front desk to the recovery suite is one experience, not a series of departments.
- The Price
- Roughly $150 a month and up, or membership on application. Price alone never qualifies a club — but a club competing on being cheap is not competing here.
What does not make it
- Access-card gyms with no staffed hours
- Budget and value chains
- Hotel gyms not open to outside members
- Franchise studios where the room is the same in every city
- Anything whose pitch is the price
A club can clear every line here and still not be listed: the index is selected, not exhaustive. We do not write back to explain a decision, and a club that is turned down can be put forward again once something has changed.