Join the "Y" or work-out at home?? (Howe: apartment, buying a house)

[TECH8506]

As of now, my wife and I live in a apartment and have a slant bench, dumbbells for strength training, and walk/jog for cardio. I have always valued exercise in my life, as does my wife. So, it's $75 for the family membership at the YMCA over on McNeil, close to where we live for the family membership, even though we have no children. We plan on buying a house in the next year or so and might want to make one of the bedrooms a work-out room, bench, pull-ups/dip station, and stationary bike. However, at the Y we can also swim and it does not tend to have the meathead feel that 24 hour and golds has, which my wife really likes. Also, with the Y, you do not have to sign a contract....advice from multiple people please??

[Trainwreck20]

We were members are the YMCA (family membership, no kids) for several years, same price, I think. What we liked:

• Could be used anywhere (while traveling for business, etc)
• Was not a meat market or meat head place
• Was very close to our house

What we did not like:

• Pool at the Y near us was tiny (really an aerobics pool, no lap swimming possible)
• Mixture of new and old equipment, sometimes got stuck on borderline stuff
• Could be crowded during peak hours (inside and parking).

We eventually joined the new lifetime fitness, and, by comparison, our likes and dislikes of a non-YMCA place:
Likes:

• Much better parking, never hard to get on equipment
• Brand new equipment, across the board (of course, the gym is brand new)
• Great pool, lots of lap swimming room (and recreational)

Dislikes:

• Seems to be a hang-out place for teenagers (which is usually fine, but sometimes annoying)
• Not a meathead place, but a bit of a meat market, sometimes
• A bit less laid back.

LT only cost us $10/month more, so the pool alone was worth.

It really depends on the YMCA....if we had had a full sized pool at ours, we probably wouldn't have switched, but might have, just for the larger capacity....

[TECH8506]

The one on McNeil, which is where we will be going has a pretty nice pool, not perfect, but good enough, sauna, hot tub, exercise classes which are included, weights and cardio of course, etc.. . I personally would not enjoy the teenager hang-out environment, just me. Anyway, thanks for the input, i appreciate it.

[chickenfry]

sometimes we use the downtown y to shower. if you go to town lake (whoops excuse me, lady bird lake) for exercise etc, then you can hop over to the y and clean up and hit downtown for eating/drinking
or we exercise downtown at the y for varied reasons. sometimes just to use the heavy bags which they have at the downtown location.
i love that about being a Y member.

[sallyransom]

I like and belong to both the Y and Golds. I like the Y because its inexpensive and seems to be more family geared and for that reason I own the family membership. I like Golds because its all adults and people seem to be more motivated about getting a really good work out in for the day. This gets me more motivated as well. I haven't noticed a Meathead syndrome thing going on at my Golds.