Gyms for the travelling lifters...

[Chebass88]

Here are a few great gyms I've visited while travelling:

Columbia Basin Racquet Club, Richland, WA (http://mycbrc.com/). This is a great facility with plenty of weights (a few sets of hundreds too!), as well as all the equipment you'll need to train hard. Also includes racquetball courts, tennis courts, indoor track, assortment of "plyo" equipment, etc. Drop-in rate was reasonable (It's been a few years since I was there).

Franco's, Mandeville, LA. This is a decent commercial gym with a lot of equipment. It isn't powerlifting-focused per se, but there are plenty of bars and a couple racks for squatting, deadlifting, and of course, benches.

Anytime Fitness, Devens, MA - I trained here quite a bit this past summer. A day pass was ~$10. I didn't deadlift here, but they had a rack and a few Rogue bars. It is a small facility and if two powerlifters were lifting simultaneously, all the weights could easily be used.

Iron Sport Gym, Glenolden, PA. Stevie P's gym. This is the best gym I've ever been in. It is chock-full of good & useful equipment. They've recently switched to a key fob access, so you might want to call ahead. HIGHLY recommended if you're going through the Philly area. Day rate was $15 or so.

I've also had great success training at Golds, LA Fitness, etc. I do deadlifts at home on the weekends, and most commercial gyms are usually suitable for squats, presses, curls, rows, and maybe benches. I'm not particularly too concerned with equipment quality either - as long as there is a power rack, a bar, and some weights - I'm set.

[GainsdalfTheWhey]

Iron Sport Gym, Glenolden, PA. Stevie P's gym. This is the best gym I've ever been in. It is chock-full of good & useful equipment. They've recently switched to a key fob access, so you might want to call ahead. HIGHLY recommended if you're going through the Philly area. Day rate was $15 or so.

Second Iron Sport being the best gym I've ever been in. Grew up 10 minutes away, just moved back to the area and live 15 away now. It's on the way home from work too. Once my kids are older and doing their thing, leaving me enough time to workout at night again, I'd really like to join up.

[DirtyRed]

If, god forbid, you are stuck in Bowling Green (the one in Kentucky), the Bowling Green Athletic Club (BAC, these people don't understand how initials work) on Scottsville Rd has two power-cage-and-platform hybrids, some bumper plates, two more half-rack things, one of which isn't so wide as to be unusable, a seated press rack, a variety of benches, a load of dumbbells, and a host of other silly shit (including a "cardio theater" so you can watch some inoffensively mediocre super hero movie in between sets). It's open from 7 AM Monday to 10 PM Friday, and 7 to 7 on the weekend. The location off 31W/Nashville Rd has all the same stuff, just about a third of it, with hours I don't fully understand. No reason to go there unless you want a basketball court.

I am to understand the Total Fitness Connection on Three Springs Rd has a fly set up for barbell hoisting and the like, but I believe it trends more expensive, and I don't know the hours. Their location on Russelville Rd, I am led to believe, isn't as well equipped.

[TwoFoursStrohm]

@omaniphil or anyone else, got any suggestions for gyms on the Cape itself? (:

Sorry - no idea. We always quickly drive through and catch the ferry in Hyannis early in the morning. Never spent any time on the Cape.

Cape Cod Fitness Center in Hyannis - Its ok. $50 for the week. I think it's an old Gold's Gym. There is 1 power rack with decent hole spacing and one slanted rack. The plates and bars are old Ivanko. No bumpers but the place is in the basement of a hotel and they don't seem to care about deadlifting.

[BostonRugger]

Worcester, MA - Mass Barbell Gym - 179 Grafton St

OPBs, TPBs, DL bars, rogue multi purpose bars, eleiko wl bar, some kinda squat bar, rogue comp bumpers and calibrated plates, couple rogue RML 6 (I think), half racks, TSS comp bench and squat stand combo, platforms, lots of good iron. Turf track, strongman stuff.

I visited last week. Very impressed. Will probably join when my membership runs out unless I decide to pony up for a garage gym.

[GainsdalfTheWhey]

Worcester, MA - Mass Barbell Gym - 179 Grafton St

OPBs, TPBs, DL bars, rogue multi purpose bars, eleiko wl bar, some kinda squat bar, rogue comp bumpers and calibrated plates, couple rogue RML 6 (I think), half racks, TSS comp bench and squat stand combo, platforms, lots of good iron. Turf track, strongman stuff.

I visited last week. Very impressed. Will probably join when my membership runs out unless I decide to pony up for a garage gym.

Ever been to Cambridge Strength and Conditioning? It was pretty legit 5-6 years ago when I was up there, and I hear it's only gotten better since.

[BostonRugger]

Yeah, I used to lift at their old (gritty af, 45 degrees in the winter) location in Cambridge. Now they're firmly in Arlington in a better facility. I live way out of town (my username is now misleading) and can't train there practically any longer.

[d0uevenlift]

Anyone with the skills to do so want to make an interactive map of this? Like... dots on a map that you can hover over and it shows you the gym location with a link to the site? I'm sure it isn't easy or cheap to make that map/site/app, but I'm willing to chip in.

[Shane]

Anyone with the skills to do so want to make an interactive map of this? Like... dots on a map that you can hover over and it shows you the gym location with a link to the site? I'm sure it isn't easy or cheap to make that map/site/app, but I'm willing to chip in.

Google maps with a customized layer is the absolutely free approach to this. You can use a data table and customize markers if there's some characteristic you want to use to distinguish between them. All you need to create/contribute is a google account. Can either make it public or share it with specific people.

[d0uevenlift]

Anyone with the skills to do so want to make an interactive map of this? Like... dots on a map that you can hover over and it shows you the gym location with a link to the site? I'm sure it isn't easy or cheap to make that map/site/app, but I'm willing to chip in.

Google maps with a customized layer is the absolutely free approach to this. You can use a data table and customize markers if there's some characteristic you want to use to distinguish between them. All you need to create/contribute is a google account. Can either make it public or share it with specific people.

Damn good to know.

[Shane]

Anyone with the skills to do so want to make an interactive map of this? Like... dots on a map that you can hover over and it shows you the gym location with a link to the site? I'm sure it isn't easy or cheap to make that map/site/app, but I'm willing to chip in.

Google maps with a customized layer is the absolutely free approach to this. You can use a data table and customize markers if there's some characteristic you want to use to distinguish between them. All you need to create/contribute is a google account. Can either make it public or share it with specific people.

Damn good to know.

I might do a quick mockup based on this thread if I don't get sucked in to bingeing nextflix tonight. And it's also possible that by tomorrow morning @unruhschuh will have a web app hosted and fully-featured ios & android apps ready for download.

[Shane]

Ok it took me a couple of minutes to do, but I've only used dummy markers to make it even quicker. Screeny.



Link is here. It's viewable and editable by anyone with the link. I just picked a name, comment, rating, location setup, set markers to colour by rating (1-5) then manually added a pic to one of them. But I'm sure we can set up a 12 person committee to scope terms of reference for the schema if there's interest. At a minimum I guess a link to the gym would be useful. There's probably another way to do this direct from a google search with an extension or something, but I haven't looked.

[KyleSchuant]

Parallel evolution happening at the SS forum.

https://startingstrength.com/resources/ ... forum.html

which led to

http://blackirongyms.com/resources.html

[omaniphil]

Parallel evolution happening at the SS forum.

https://startingstrength.com/resources/ ... forum.html

which led to

http://blackirongyms.com/resources.html

Not entirely sure why Rip moved it into the Repetitive Inquiries sub forum, since I think the map that msupples created could be very useful. I propose that instead of creating the Exodus Strength gym list, we just use that one since it will likely get more visibility being at StSt, and thus get filled in more quickly, making it more useful.

[Shane]

Cool - I didn't know that was kicking around. Is that your place as the lone Oz entry Kyle?

[BenM]

Cool - I didn't know that was kicking around. Is that your place as the lone Oz entry Kyle?

Not Kyle, but yes that's his joint. I scoped it out a while ago, as I was thinking of coming over for some coaching myself at some point, which never happened for various reasons.

[KyleSchuant]

Looks like it. I didn't put it up.

You're doing SSOC, aren't you, Ben? So you'll be fine.

[DannyP]

Was in Southern California last week (Carlsbad and Palm Desert); tried three gyms, two of which I'd recommend:

Carlsbad: Crunch. Normally a chain I'd use if closest, but wouldn't actively recommend, however this one had real platforms and bumper plates and I found some very nice Iron Grip bars (others were cheap and crappy ones).

Palm Desert: Power of Fitness. Very no-frills, but two permanently installed racks and some stuff you typically don't find in commercial gyms (nice TX Power Bar, safety squat bar, micro plates going below a pound). Only downside (which wasn't really) was no mirror in front of rack to make sure I was centered on bar.

As a subtopic (probably not big enough to deserve its own thread): Hotels with gyms suitable for lifting.

Bellevue, WA: Hyatt Regency. Two racks with bumper plates. Last time I was there, no collars, though...

Bellevue, WA: Hotel Bellevue (attached to Bellevue Club). Fantastic gym, if someone else is paying for hotel...

Boston, MA: Ritz Carlton attached to Equinox. See note above...

[DirtyRed]

Parallel evolution happening at the SS forum.

https://startingstrength.com/resources/ ... forum.html

which led to

http://blackirongyms.com/resources.html

Not entirely sure why Rip moved it into the Repetitive Inquiries sub forum, since I think the map that msupples created could be very useful. I propose that instead of creating the Exodus Strength gym list, we just use that one since it will likely get more visibility being at StSt, and thus get filled in more quickly, making it more useful.

I propose that you're an idiot, and limiting the map to only Official Black Iron Gyms is going to significantly limit the effectiveness of allowing travelers to find a merely sufficient gym to train in.

[BenM]

Looks like it. I didn't put it up.

You're doing SSOC, aren't you, Ben? So you'll be fine.

Nope. Bit out of my price range. I’m in Andy’s Baker Barbell Club though I’m not doing that programming right now.

Gonna get some in person coaching from Jordan and Tom when they’re over here in Feb though.