Gym Reviews

It's great to see a growing list of places offering useful, quality kit and informed, experienced staff.

To add to the list, if it's not already on there, I give you East Coast Barbell in Bray.

I've just completed the introductory weightlifting course(that’s snatch and clean & Jerk to the rest of us) and it really opened my eyes firstly to how hard these movements are to execute well and secondly just how strong the guys are who can execute them well. The coach on the course was Wayne Healy, a veteran of 2 world championships and for a man of scarcely 63kgs he has a squat that would humble most guys on here. Aside from his own lifting abilities Wayne has a great eye for spotting a mistake, so I kept him busy.

Apart from weightlifting the gym is used by a lot of athletes from various sports for strength and conditioning work. I wasn’t exposed to this aspect of the gym but the couple of sessions I witnessed seemed to focus on explosive movements/plyometric work and mobility(there is an in-house physio). Again there are a couple of coaches with specific skills in this area(Sami and Barry) who are constantly devising workouts, monitoring progress etc.

The facility itself has some great kit, a bunch of lifting platforms and squat cages. Bumper plates are everywhere and the bars are well maintained(i.e. no warping and the knurling has not been dulled). There's a good range of dumbbells, the obligatory prowler and sled as well as all the resistance bands and numerous torture devices for myofacial release. There's a great vibe in the place, more like a club than a gym, great support and respect for people who are training hard.

Oh and there's no mirrors, except a weird art-deco style one in the men's changing rooms.

Hi gaherne, The introductory course I did ran at a specific time (6.30 - 8ish Mondays and Wednesdays), but there were a couple of guys who couldnt get there before 7 and they were accommodated no problem. From what I could tell though once you sign up as a member then you train at the time that suits you; there is always at least one of the instructors there and I expect they will give as much or as little input as you like unless you are going to kill yourself. I guess the point is that when you join they will discuss your goals with you, whether that be lean muscle gain, increase your vertical jump or snatch your bodyweight and then they will design a program tailored to you to help you achieve that. So the goals are yours, the guys just want to help you achieve them.

I know g'em uses the place a lot and I see someone called East Coast Barbell has posted on a thread here today so perhaps they'll correct me if I have gotten anything wrong above.

Hope that helps

FreudianSlippers wrote: »

I can say that Fitness Dock Camden Street is total crap.

Probably one of the worst gyms I've ever come across.

Staff are idiotic to say the least and the equipment is sub-par.
Sure, there are lots of treadmills, but the weights section is small and ALWAYS in use by staff that are on their day off or lunch or whatever.

They've also taken that very American approach of trying to guilt you into not quitting.
I explained perfectly adequate reasons for quitting, one of which was that I wasn't going to be living in the area anymore and there were closer places to me (that are better) and they were not nice or helpful.

After I quit, they kept taking the direct debit for 4 months until I noticed and I believe they would have kept going if I hadn't.
Took them a while to get it back to me, but still.

Overall an awful experience there.

would have to agree - place has gone to the dogs. Equipment is crap, lockers all broken, changing rooms rotten, a lot of the staff members are rude and take over the gym when PT'ing or training themselves. Its dirty and smelly - only thing it has going is location.

zootroid wrote: »

I called into Westwood to enquire about membership. There is a 500 euro joining fee, and the membership is 75 euro a month (so annual subscription is 900 euro), so your first year's membership would be 1400 euro. An absolutely ridiculous price, who can afford to spend that on gym membership??

You can usually barging them down on the joining fee, I got mine for €99 and have heard of someone who got it even cheaper (around €75 ish I think), but they will not budge on the monthly fee.

I was a member in Clontarf and went there 6 days a week. So for me the joining fee of €99 + (€75*12) €900 in monthly payments, total €999 worked out at €999 / 312 (number of visits, 52 * 6) = €3.20 / visit.

Which for the gym (large & decently equipped. Never had to wait for equipment, and I always went at peak times), pools, (mostly) free classes (I liked Spinning), and wet area, along with free parking, and lots of it if you use the over flow CP was well worth it IMO.

Disclaimer: I have no affiliation with WW what so ever!

g'em wrote: »

Great review Maars

When you sign up with ECB the coaches will sit down with you and discus what your primary goals are and a tailor made program will be designed for you. You can come in and train at whatever time suits you and there's always a coach on site to watch over what you're doing.

We also have a Physio on site (more like a miracle worker tbh ) who you get a free functional screening with and she'll tailor a prehab/rehab program for you to correct any imbalances that you have and you can get screenings periodically to see how thingsare progressing.

I've been a member there since it opened last summer and I really live it down there - like Maars said the vibe is fantastic, there's always great craic to be had and there's a lot of really talented people around so it's hard not to be inspired when you train there. There's a great mix of casual trainees and top end athletes but when you're out on the floor the only thing anyone cares about is putting in their best performance and pushing eachother as hard as we can

Thanks gem

Emailed via the website and Barry got back to me straight away.
Gonna pop down and have a look at the place this week

Limousine Fred wrote: »

Hey Guys!
Any recommendations of gyms in Ranelagh or surrounding area (walking distance or on luas line)
Basically looking for somewhere that has a squat rack, good free weights, bb bench press (not smith machine) not too bothered about machines.

Raw is a class gym and nearby

http://www.rawcondition.com/

http://informedperformance.com/

Check out the above gym.Has great facilites and one of ,if not ,irelands best strength & conditioning coaches.Also you canuse all teh facilites -free weights,squat racks,kettlebells,prowler etc etc.I think its 80 a month but AFAIK theres no joinign fee.You can also participate in MMA,BJJ and muay thai classes unlimited for 5 /6 days a week.You can do Muay thai for cardio and you dont have to spar or make contact with another person if u wish.

Knocks teh socks off any of the gyms out there IMO

I think there's a Crunch opening in the Beacon Court complex. NOt 100% sure but the signs on the windows says there's one on the way. There's Westwood as well down in Leopardstown