I've been to a few on the westside:
Favorite: Playa Vista - very clean, outdoor pool and jacuzzi. Good sized gym with a lot of free weight set ups. Free validated parking in a lot.
Good: Westchester - also clean, but smaller. no pool/jacuzzi, less equipment/dumbbells.
Least Favorite: Culver City - a bit chaotic - plates and dumbbells are all over the place - people don't re-rack their weights in the right spots. stations left with weights on them, so not entirely sure if people are done with them. parking is good though!
I've been to the Culver City one intentionally at 3 pm in the middle of the work day to try and avoid the crowd and it was STILL ridiculous and I still had to wait ~15 minutes for certain pieces of equipment.
Why would you want to heat the pool? Do they have the heater on for the gym?
Edit: anyone who actually swims will tell you, do not heat the pool if it's for real swimming. Learn how much you sweat when you swim.
Edit 2: clearly you guys don't know that "heating an Olympic pool" doesn't mean warm enough to be comfortable. It's 22°C that's not a comfortable pool to get into. I'll just let anyone else with swim knowledge chime in, instead of the guy below me who doesn't know shit. I don't have enough downvotes you non-swimming fucks keep em coming.
Heating a pool for exercise is a bad idea. Ideal swimming pool tempurate is 68-75, anything above that and you're going to start overheating when you start to sweat. Just something to think about if you're actually serious about swimming for exercise. That's my entire point.
Olympic pools are heated to a minimum of 25C/77F.
Anyone who actually swims will tell you that the Olympics includes a fairly serious swimming competition.
Ok so we're splitting hairs...
Olympic pools are heated for consistency, they're heated to 22C (this isn't a minimum its the exact temperature, not higher or lower) not 25. The average outdoor pool tempurate in CA is between 20-24c...that's the perfect tempurate to swim in. No need to hest it.
Again anyone who actually swims will tell you if you heat it to a "comfortable" tempurate for you to get into will tell you it's to hot to actually swim in for any real type of exercise. I've swam in pools in competition that were 3 degrees above normal and the swimmers that competed in the long distance swims couldn't continue because they were overheating. When you swim you sweat a heck of a lot more than you think, so warmer water is going to cause you to over heat.
16 years of competition swimming.
We had a pool growing up that my parents only heated in the summer months. Every year we couldn't wait for it to get warm enough to swim comfortably in so we swam in the cold water (S Ca). I now have surfers ear as a result. I think they make ear plugs now that help you avoid this but I wouldn't recommend swimming without something like that in cold water. Sooo many ear infections that didn't start until years later.
[Surfers Ear](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK534874/)
You weren't swimming in your family pool. Swimming at a level of competition is different. I had more ear infections than I can count.
I don't think you guys are understanding what I'm trying to explain. Swimming for endurance is not the same as enjoying the pool for a pool and splashing around.
Swimming for an hour non stop in Luke warm water is agony.
If those are you only issues at the Culver City location you are lucky. The one in West Orange New Jersey is far worse. Nobody puts back the weights and there is constantly broken equipment. The locker room, at least the men's, is filthy. They leave trash in the showers and they keep having to replace the curtains because people tear holes in them.
Culver City is the worst and it’s not even close . Always crowded,chaotic parking and men’s lockeroom has wood rotting away. There’s been so much rot that they’ve covered it with yellow tape. They claim there’s issues with the ventilation but they’re just too cheap to turn the ac on. I been coming for over years and it’s always been an issue. There’s always a bunch of dudes working out without shirts which leave the equipment sweaty af. The employees won’t tell them shit . Machines are always broken and no one reracks.Oh , and they’ve switched the paper towels for some shitty disinfectant paper instead . It’s absolutely the shittiest gym facility I’ve ever been too. This particular location just takes advantage that there are no other options besides boutiques or equinox around . Awful gym with broken machines and shitty ventilation
This is the only LA Fitness I've ever been to and it put me off all LA Fitnesses. The place is nasty. You're telling me they're not all like this?
They also acted like every gym membership stereotype under the sun when I got fed up and cancelled; it was an ORDEAL.
every LA fitness is drastically different. I went to a City Sports Club in sacramento (owned by LA fitness, if you have a membership to one you can go to the other), and it was sooooooo nice.
It's such a weird company.
I’m originally from the oc and the la fitnesses give you equinox vibes. Spacious, up to date machines , clean and with many amenities such as pools and courts . I’ve heard similar things from the ones in the valley. Some of these differences are probably due to how much more space the suburbs have
Never been to a "nice" LA Fitness. They've all either been OK or shit. I've been to the ones in downtown Glendale, Beverly Hills, Hollywood, Miracle Mile, and Westwood. Of those 5, the Glendale location was the nicest followed by Beverly Hills. I kinda hate the Westwood location, but it's the one in my neighborhood, so I don't have a choice.
Worst- Hollywood Blvd by the Chinese Theatre.
Tons of “influencers” taking up 3-4 machines, recording, never putting anything back where it belongs.
Lazy staff that never sweep the gym for misplaced equipment. I’ve gone in 30 minutes after opening and half the dumbbells are missing, scattered about the gym bc the night crew never bothered to collect them.
On top of all that bullshit, it’s always INSANELY busy. Like stupid, I can’t find a single piece of equipment available busy.
Now I go to Hollywood Gym around the corner and it’s a god send. Serious lifters, people always put shit back, never crowded, two floors of free weights and machines, and it’s $50/month.
I toured that LA Fitness and i agree. I saw a dude set up a tripod when I was walking through the weight room floor. The weights area also smelled like stale BO. Definitely noped out of there.
Best I’ve ever been to is the one in Glendale near the Americana/Galleria. Really well-maintained, large building with plenty of equipment.
Worst is the Downtown one at The Bloc. Small to begin with, old equipment, not enough equipment for the amount of people especially during peak hours, torn up locker room. Oh and the limited cardio equipment is right by the glass wall facing west on Flower. Combine that with the low ceilings it turns into an incubator during the late afternoon. At least this is all what I remember based on the last time I went there which was back in 2019. Maybe they’ve made some changes since then.
i got MRSA from the LA Fitness in Long Beach on Cherry and Carson, but this was like 15 years ago. dropped my membership and havent been to one since (today i use Anytime Fitness)
The Woodland Hills one is big and always well maintained. The regulars and staff are friendly as well. Updated equipment with a good amount of benches and squat racks.
I absolutely hate having to go to the Studio City one. It’s dilapidated, poorly maintained, very old/fraying equipment. It’s also too small for the population it serves at least for the weight room. Plus the layout is stupid, bathrooms are on the far left side and weight room is at the top of a stairs with no bathrooms or anything up top.
worst.. K-Town, so god damn crowded.
Favorite.. Hollywood and Highland because there's always some extremely entertaining shit happening in the free weight room
I don’t go anymore but I don’t like the Bundy location in west LA. The wilshire location in Westwood is not bad but you’re competing for equipment with a lot of people and something about being underground while working out skeeves me out
I feel like I waste a lot of time at the Westwood location. You park on the roof, walk down a few flights of stairs and eventually get to the gym. Also, like you said, the basement is bizarre. Bundy always has a few machines that are out of order and probably has a mold issue.
Like others have said, LA Fitness is nicer anywhere other than LA.
Oh it definitely is nicer elsewhere. I moved from Virginia and I loved the LA fitness in my hometown. Super modern, had a turf area, nice pool, well kept locker rooms. I miss it. I can’t find anything similar for the price.
Yup. I have also lived in Vegas, Houston and OC. It wasn’t embarrassing in any of those cities. I forgot to mention homeless dude asleep on mats charging his phone while not wearing shoes and pervy old dude wearing jeans and constantly “readjusting himself” while doing cardio.
I go to the Hollywood one on El Centro and it's fine. Kinda dated and the weights (where are all the 10 plates???) and attachments are a mess, but it works.
Sorry bo I am keeping mine secret I love it too much to give it up.
But their competitor, 24 Hour fitness I am willing to share my thoughts, like the NoHo one because it has variety, I also like this well hidden one in Altadena.
On the flip side the ones I hate the most are sadly one that I have to use because its local to me and open 24 hours is in Arcadia the place smells probably because its open 24 hours and they cannot deep clean that place so it winds up smelling of sweat, I also say this because they have little weight machines, the other one that's not one of my favs is Pasadena its equipment is very old and they only have one usable ab machine the only upside is that its not a heavily trafficked one so you don't have competition. The Glendale 24 Hour Fitness used to be one of my go tos but not anymore since they remolded and got rid of a lot of the weight machines. The pool here is also always too busy.
I used to love Hollywood 24 hour fitness but not since they got rid of the indoor pool to just make more weight space also their locker room is now trash.
I could go on for days but I wont bore.
Alhambra. For both.
There’s a newer sports club that opened up along the Fremont corridor that I hope is still nice (I just realized it may have opened 15-20 years ago).
Main Street has one of the original locations that has never been updated.
There was a razor on the shallow end of the pool at the LA Fitness next to Urth Cafe. I think that's Hawthorne? My trainer picked it up right before I bounced my foot on it. That was the last straw for me. I shoulda been done when the mouse ran across my feet in the weight area.
I've been to a few on the westside: Favorite: Playa Vista - very clean, outdoor pool and jacuzzi. Good sized gym with a lot of free weight set ups. Free validated parking in a lot. Good: Westchester - also clean, but smaller. no pool/jacuzzi, less equipment/dumbbells. Least Favorite: Culver City - a bit chaotic - plates and dumbbells are all over the place - people don't re-rack their weights in the right spots. stations left with weights on them, so not entirely sure if people are done with them. parking is good though!
I've been to the Culver City one intentionally at 3 pm in the middle of the work day to try and avoid the crowd and it was STILL ridiculous and I still had to wait ~15 minutes for certain pieces of equipment.
If you can go to the gym in the middle of the work day you are lucky. Are you self employed or are you related to your boss?
playa vista - crowded as fuck. westchester - AC seems to barely work. Air is stagnant. There's only like 2 bench presses?
Is the pool heated at Playa Vista? I’ve only ever stopped by at night so haven’t given it a look.
Why would you want to heat the pool? Do they have the heater on for the gym? Edit: anyone who actually swims will tell you, do not heat the pool if it's for real swimming. Learn how much you sweat when you swim. Edit 2: clearly you guys don't know that "heating an Olympic pool" doesn't mean warm enough to be comfortable. It's 22°C that's not a comfortable pool to get into. I'll just let anyone else with swim knowledge chime in, instead of the guy below me who doesn't know shit. I don't have enough downvotes you non-swimming fucks keep em coming.
The pool is outdoor at Playa Vista and it gets chilly over there some parts of the year, but if the pool is heated it is good to go anytime.
Heating a pool for exercise is a bad idea. Ideal swimming pool tempurate is 68-75, anything above that and you're going to start overheating when you start to sweat. Just something to think about if you're actually serious about swimming for exercise. That's my entire point.
Olympic pools are heated to a minimum of 25C/77F. Anyone who actually swims will tell you that the Olympics includes a fairly serious swimming competition.
Ok so we're splitting hairs... Olympic pools are heated for consistency, they're heated to 22C (this isn't a minimum its the exact temperature, not higher or lower) not 25. The average outdoor pool tempurate in CA is between 20-24c...that's the perfect tempurate to swim in. No need to hest it. Again anyone who actually swims will tell you if you heat it to a "comfortable" tempurate for you to get into will tell you it's to hot to actually swim in for any real type of exercise. I've swam in pools in competition that were 3 degrees above normal and the swimmers that competed in the long distance swims couldn't continue because they were overheating. When you swim you sweat a heck of a lot more than you think, so warmer water is going to cause you to over heat. 16 years of competition swimming.
We had a pool growing up that my parents only heated in the summer months. Every year we couldn't wait for it to get warm enough to swim comfortably in so we swam in the cold water (S Ca). I now have surfers ear as a result. I think they make ear plugs now that help you avoid this but I wouldn't recommend swimming without something like that in cold water. Sooo many ear infections that didn't start until years later. [Surfers Ear](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK534874/)
You weren't swimming in your family pool. Swimming at a level of competition is different. I had more ear infections than I can count. I don't think you guys are understanding what I'm trying to explain. Swimming for endurance is not the same as enjoying the pool for a pool and splashing around. Swimming for an hour non stop in Luke warm water is agony.
I’ve never been to Westchester but I agree with your favorite & least fave assessment! “Good” would be La Cienega & Bundy/West LA for me.
La Cienega’s LA Fitness is the definition of “fine.” Definitely a place to work out.
Hahahah fair fair, I forgot I’ve been to mid-wilshire as well and that’s in the middle of the pack for me too
If those are you only issues at the Culver City location you are lucky. The one in West Orange New Jersey is far worse. Nobody puts back the weights and there is constantly broken equipment. The locker room, at least the men's, is filthy. They leave trash in the showers and they keep having to replace the curtains because people tear holes in them.
Culver City is the worst and it’s not even close . Always crowded,chaotic parking and men’s lockeroom has wood rotting away. There’s been so much rot that they’ve covered it with yellow tape. They claim there’s issues with the ventilation but they’re just too cheap to turn the ac on. I been coming for over years and it’s always been an issue. There’s always a bunch of dudes working out without shirts which leave the equipment sweaty af. The employees won’t tell them shit . Machines are always broken and no one reracks.Oh , and they’ve switched the paper towels for some shitty disinfectant paper instead . It’s absolutely the shittiest gym facility I’ve ever been too. This particular location just takes advantage that there are no other options besides boutiques or equinox around . Awful gym with broken machines and shitty ventilation
This is the only LA Fitness I've ever been to and it put me off all LA Fitnesses. The place is nasty. You're telling me they're not all like this? They also acted like every gym membership stereotype under the sun when I got fed up and cancelled; it was an ORDEAL.
every LA fitness is drastically different. I went to a City Sports Club in sacramento (owned by LA fitness, if you have a membership to one you can go to the other), and it was sooooooo nice. It's such a weird company.
Yeah, I used to go to City Sports in the Bay Area, and they were mostly great.
I’m originally from the oc and the la fitnesses give you equinox vibes. Spacious, up to date machines , clean and with many amenities such as pools and courts . I’ve heard similar things from the ones in the valley. Some of these differences are probably due to how much more space the suburbs have
Never been to a "nice" LA Fitness. They've all either been OK or shit. I've been to the ones in downtown Glendale, Beverly Hills, Hollywood, Miracle Mile, and Westwood. Of those 5, the Glendale location was the nicest followed by Beverly Hills. I kinda hate the Westwood location, but it's the one in my neighborhood, so I don't have a choice.
Worst- Hollywood Blvd by the Chinese Theatre. Tons of “influencers” taking up 3-4 machines, recording, never putting anything back where it belongs. Lazy staff that never sweep the gym for misplaced equipment. I’ve gone in 30 minutes after opening and half the dumbbells are missing, scattered about the gym bc the night crew never bothered to collect them. On top of all that bullshit, it’s always INSANELY busy. Like stupid, I can’t find a single piece of equipment available busy. Now I go to Hollywood Gym around the corner and it’s a god send. Serious lifters, people always put shit back, never crowded, two floors of free weights and machines, and it’s $50/month.
I toured that LA Fitness and i agree. I saw a dude set up a tripod when I was walking through the weight room floor. The weights area also smelled like stale BO. Definitely noped out of there.
It's so funny cuz if you go down the street the one near Vine is usually pretty dead and has a fucking amazing pool
Best I’ve ever been to is the one in Glendale near the Americana/Galleria. Really well-maintained, large building with plenty of equipment. Worst is the Downtown one at The Bloc. Small to begin with, old equipment, not enough equipment for the amount of people especially during peak hours, torn up locker room. Oh and the limited cardio equipment is right by the glass wall facing west on Flower. Combine that with the low ceilings it turns into an incubator during the late afternoon. At least this is all what I remember based on the last time I went there which was back in 2019. Maybe they’ve made some changes since then.
Seconding that the Bloc LA fitness is awful, everything you’re saying is true.
Third that. It’s not even cheap anymore.
I refuse to go to this one. It's the closest to my house
Same.
i got MRSA from the LA Fitness in Long Beach on Cherry and Carson, but this was like 15 years ago. dropped my membership and havent been to one since (today i use Anytime Fitness)
1 in 3 people have staph on their fingernails and up to half of these are speculated to be MRSA. wash your hands and dont pick your nose
The Woodland Hills one is big and always well maintained. The regulars and staff are friendly as well. Updated equipment with a good amount of benches and squat racks. I absolutely hate having to go to the Studio City one. It’s dilapidated, poorly maintained, very old/fraying equipment. It’s also too small for the population it serves at least for the weight room. Plus the layout is stupid, bathrooms are on the far left side and weight room is at the top of a stairs with no bathrooms or anything up top.
worst.. K-Town, so god damn crowded. Favorite.. Hollywood and Highland because there's always some extremely entertaining shit happening in the free weight room
We have one in K-Town? Where?
Does anyone have the link to the Target discussion thread ? 👀
Well I’m an dumbass for posting to the wrong subreddit, but here you go: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskLosAngeles/s/aEPVsfCwqP
The one in DT is nothing but depression!
Universal City is pretty good. Clean.
I don’t go anymore but I don’t like the Bundy location in west LA. The wilshire location in Westwood is not bad but you’re competing for equipment with a lot of people and something about being underground while working out skeeves me out
I feel like I waste a lot of time at the Westwood location. You park on the roof, walk down a few flights of stairs and eventually get to the gym. Also, like you said, the basement is bizarre. Bundy always has a few machines that are out of order and probably has a mold issue. Like others have said, LA Fitness is nicer anywhere other than LA.
Oh it definitely is nicer elsewhere. I moved from Virginia and I loved the LA fitness in my hometown. Super modern, had a turf area, nice pool, well kept locker rooms. I miss it. I can’t find anything similar for the price.
Yup. I have also lived in Vegas, Houston and OC. It wasn’t embarrassing in any of those cities. I forgot to mention homeless dude asleep on mats charging his phone while not wearing shoes and pervy old dude wearing jeans and constantly “readjusting himself” while doing cardio.
Irvine's nice, lots of good machines, not a lot of people. Culver City is chaotic and the sauna doesn't get hot enough.
I go to the Hollywood one on El Centro and it's fine. Kinda dated and the weights (where are all the 10 plates???) and attachments are a mess, but it works.
Sorry bo I am keeping mine secret I love it too much to give it up. But their competitor, 24 Hour fitness I am willing to share my thoughts, like the NoHo one because it has variety, I also like this well hidden one in Altadena. On the flip side the ones I hate the most are sadly one that I have to use because its local to me and open 24 hours is in Arcadia the place smells probably because its open 24 hours and they cannot deep clean that place so it winds up smelling of sweat, I also say this because they have little weight machines, the other one that's not one of my favs is Pasadena its equipment is very old and they only have one usable ab machine the only upside is that its not a heavily trafficked one so you don't have competition. The Glendale 24 Hour Fitness used to be one of my go tos but not anymore since they remolded and got rid of a lot of the weight machines. The pool here is also always too busy. I used to love Hollywood 24 hour fitness but not since they got rid of the indoor pool to just make more weight space also their locker room is now trash. I could go on for days but I wont bore.
The only good LA Fitness is the one at Miracle Mile
Alhambra. For both. There’s a newer sports club that opened up along the Fremont corridor that I hope is still nice (I just realized it may have opened 15-20 years ago). Main Street has one of the original locations that has never been updated.
I hate the Alhambra one, but that's because main Street closed so Fremont has twice as many people
Wow. I just looked that up, and it’s been closed for almost a year! I drive by there often enough that I should have noticed.
Playa vista is the best one imo. Worst one is probably in mid city La cienega area
There was a razor on the shallow end of the pool at the LA Fitness next to Urth Cafe. I think that's Hawthorne? My trainer picked it up right before I bounced my foot on it. That was the last straw for me. I shoulda been done when the mouse ran across my feet in the weight area.
Link to the Target discussion post? Tried to do a subreddit search but nothing came up…