California Fitness @ Mid Valley

Managed to get hold of this 1-month guest membership at California Fitness gym, Mid Valley. The trial membership is good till June 1, courtesy of my secondary school mate who recently joined the gym.

Having been a member of Fitness First for few months (I later transferred my membership to my sis, sensible thing to do since I'm in S'ban), I thought I'd write up a general comparison between these two gym biggies.

There are currently only 2 California Fitness gyms in Malaysia, both located in the Klang Valley - one at Mid Valley and the other at Menara Standard Chartered, Jalan Sultan Ismail. The third branch is opening soon at Sunway Pyramid.

Let's start with California's plus points: It's got a swimming pool, a jacuzzi pool, and a small basketball court. That's it really... (oh yeah they provide towel service too!)

The pool.

The jacuzzi pool.

The basketball court.

The rest of the gym is pretty standard, classy. Quite similar with Fitness First.

Treadmills.

Kickboxing ring.

Weight machines.

More machines...

Free weights.

I have my gripes though:

I personally think the free-weight section could be better. The selection of dumbbell weights for example, I think they have exactly two pairs for each weight (eg. 2 pairs for 20lbs, 2 pairs for 120lbs, 2 pairs for 200lbs). They should provide more dumbbells in the practical weight range. Come on, how many dicks can carry 200lbs on one hand?

For a gym of such reputation, the free-weight area should be larger to cater for the big number of members. Or at least arrange those benches in an unencumbered manner! Close proximity with gym goers make me feel like I'm in a gay-club! I liked the way Fitness First separate the machine area and the free-weight area.

Fitness First provide a lounge area where members chill out after their workout with free-flowing 100Plus (and other carbonated soft drinks), a selection of tea (green tea, oolong, etc.) and coffee, not to mention warm drinking water in addition to the water coolers littered around the gym. Looking for a watering hole in California Fitness? "Sorry sir, if you're so well off that you can afford to join the prestigious California Fitness, you might as well buy from us from the vending machines provided! Or else, help yourself with the free water in the swimming pool. Thank you!"

I can't help but notice there are loads of posers, fakers, jokers, as well as homo people around. I'm gifted, the moment I detect these faces, I could quickly categorise these people into the appropriate category. These people are those who enrol into a gym with motives other than working out. A better way to put it is that they use the gym to socialise, as a place to meet people of opposite/same sex, and the gym to them is an alternative from gaybars, pubs, etc. Not that there are none of these people in Fitness First, they are substantially fewer in number.

Now practical issues: gyms provide LOCKERS for their members to LOCK up their belongings in a safe manner. Needless to say, for a locker to be lockable, the locker must have a key hole on the outside, a hinged lock on the inside, and of course a key! California Fitness has a policy of forcing all new members to buy small padlocks if they wish to use their so-called-lockers. Therefore they can save costs by only making pigeon holes with flaps, sans the conventional locks. The size of the pigeon holes are pathetic, and weirdly shaped too. Guys with huge gym bags sure have problems stuffing them into that sh*t-hole!

On second thought, making gym members bring their own padlocks can be beneficial, security-wise, as members can always sneak out from the gym and duplicate locker keys and prey on the next member who uses the same locker. But the management would argue that it's member's padlock fault if something got stolen!

If you're looking for solid doors to safeguard your rectal tissue while in shower, you're in for despair. Each shower cubicles are covered by a thin piece of curtain which is a flappy plastic piece of sheet. Once you're in the cubicle, you find there's no hooks for you to hang your towel and underwear. To hook them, you gotta flip open the plastic curtain, and hook it outside the cubicle. I find this practise unhealthy, as it may harbour morbid jealousy from other members in the shower area and this may spark the incidences of penetration and perforation. I know it's a free country, we're in Boleh-land where whatever also Boleh as long as you pay up, but at least provide a few solid doors for guys who are well endowed and do not wish to show off, like yours truly.

So is it a practical gym to join? My answer is a very NO. For starters, the revised parking rate in Mid Valley means you would need to pay up to RM6.00 per gym session. Have you driven to Mid Valley on weekends? If you haven't, try do so this weekend. How many branches did they have again? Oh, three (including the yet to open Pyramid branch)! But I heard there are ELEVEN Fitness First gyms (if you join the Passport membership, you could go to all the Fitness First gyms around the world), and some provide free parking (like the Fitness First Menara Axis)!

I would join California Fitness if I:
(1) Drop out of med school and decided to sell handphone in Mid Valley.
(2) Work in University Hospital or UMMC as a male nurse (nearby mah, a lot free time oso).
(3) Decided to go homo.
(4) Own the going-to-be-launched upscale condominium in Mid Valley City.
(5) Own the Boulevard Hotel.
(6) If Fitness First go bankcrupt and California Fitness take over all its branches.

Having said that, I have an extra free one-month pass to California Fitness. Who wanna join me go swimming in Mid Valley?

Celebrity Fitness, the 3rd gym biggie in Malaysia. Hope this 14-day pass is still valid when I redeem it in August. Then I can complete my quest of having visited the three gym biggies in Klang Valley. But more gyms are sprouting like weeds in KL - True Fitness, Real Fitness, Pure Fitness, Serious Fitness... how to choose??


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