Do you love the gym, are you one of those people that gets up at 5am and goes for a morning workout, runs on a treadmill watching the news for an hour, or burns a 1,000 calories before breakfast?
Ash: No? Me either.
Bob: Yeah, Woo! Feel the burn!
Well whichever you are, we did it, we went to a new gym this week, we had a Day Pass and we spent the afternoon exercising, here is what we thought of Energise In London’s Holloway.
Bob: I love the gym, all those big heavy weights, the goals to achieve, the new heights you can push through and to come out feeling great.
Ash: Oh yes, not forgetting the monotonous boredom, the pain and all those guys spending hours staring at themselves in the mirrors.
As you can tell we have different goals and desires when it comes to exercise.
Ash would rather climb until his arms fall off, but Bob though she loves climbing too, also likes to push herself in the gym and Energise Holloway is a great place to do just that, a Smarter gym, one of many in the chain, it is fully stocked with rows of Spin Bikes, Cardio Running Machines and Cross Steppers, plus all the usual free weights and weight machines that you could want.
To start it’s got a decent changing area, well appointed, showers, toilets and decent size lockers, which you need your own padlock for, but most seem rented out and so in the Men’s there were only 10 free lockers to use, I suspect at peak times this means piles of discarded clothes dumped all around the room. But at least the signs are funny.
The main area as we said is filled with the usual suspects, rows of running machines and treadmills for all those who can’t understand running around a park or on a road, weights machines where guys with huge shoulders and skinny legs lift smash the weights up and down making sure everyone sees that they are lifting things and trying to show off to any female in the room.
But when Bob sat on the inductor and set the pin in the 100kg weight, one guy walked past 3 times to look and grimaced each time as she hefted the black bars up and he quickly found another part of the gym to be in. I know that she is the strong one here and can’t compete, but seeing these guys squirm at her leg presses is always the highlight of a gym visit for me.
We did the rounds, warm-up, bike, a bit of cardio, weight machines and then some treadmills, the rowing machine, the only machine Ash actually likes, because he can pretend to finally have made it on the Oxford University Boat Team! Finally we tried to use the free weights but it was over filled with the bulky guys all staring at themselves in the mirrors, so we relented and went to warm down.
It’s a shame this place doesn’t have a pool, it needed it.
But at only £19.99 (or £29.99) a month it’s affordable to most and not as crowded as its more common cousin, the Better Gyms, up the road.
So overall:
Bob: It was ok, a bit too ‘Big man’ orientated for my preferences. There wasn’t that much of a choice in Weight Machines and it was missing some of the usual suspects, Pretty much anything leg oriented was missing. It would have been good if there had been a pool but sadly it didn’t, it did have a boxing bag though so yay for that! I would go back here but I wouldn’t bother with a membership, you can get more for less at other places.
Ash: It’s a gym, I went because Bob wanted to go, but I’d rather climb, or stab myself in the eye with a knitting needle, but I know I should go more and if it was a bit closer and actually fun, I would sign up to Energise Holloway, or a similar Smarter Gym. But as it is, oh look it’s too far away, shame!
So do you love the gym, what makes a good gym? Where is the best gym in London?
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Climbing Moss 