Commercial vs Backstreet vs Garage vs Hotel Gyms

So personally, I’ve tried quite a few different types of gym over the years. Commercial gyms, backstreet gyms, garage gyms, hotel gyms.

And I can’t really sit here and tell you which one is best for you, because I genuinely don’t think there is one gym that suits everybody. What I can do is tell you what I’ve experienced in each one, because there’s always that weird feeling when you walk into a new gym for the first time.

You’ve got new people, new equipment, a completely different layout, and you’re wandering around trying to work out where everything is and what machines they’ve got. Some gyms are really organised. You’ve got your back section, chest section, legs, shoulders and so on. Then some gyms seem like they’ve just put machines wherever there was a gap.

And let me tell you, there is nothing more annoying than absolutely smashing a back session, finishing on one machine, seeing the next one you want at the complete opposite side of the gym, then watching someone sit on it while you’re walking over.

You’re halfway there thinking, please don’t. Please don’t.

They sit down.

Brilliant.

So I’m basically just going to explain the differences I’ve noticed, the good bits, the bad bits, and what I personally got out of each type of gym.

Commercial Gyms

I actually started in a commercial gym, DW Fitness. The chain has shut down now, but that was basically where this whole obsession started for me.

And I genuinely didn’t know back then that training was going to become something that would follow me for more than ten years and see me through loads of different parts of my life.

Commercial gyms are normally pretty affordable, accessible, and full of absolutely everybody. You get different backgrounds, different goals, different training styles and completely different levels of experience all under one roof.

You can have a powerlifter squatting on one rack, a PT with a new client on the next one, then some bodybuilder doing barbell curls in the third squat rack.

And yes, I know there’s a stereotype around curling in the squat rack. Yes, I’ve done it. And yes, I’ve also been pissed off when someone else has done it while I’m waiting to squat.

So I can’t really say much.

That’s commercial gyms though.

After you’ve been training in them long enough, you start noticing all the little things that happen in them, and to be honest, I’ve actually grown to love a lot of it.

But after you’ve been somewhere for a long time, especially if you start going at about five o’clock when these gyms are absolutely rammed, eventually you start thinking about trying somewhere else.

And I’m actually quite a firm believer in that. Not changing gyms every five minutes, but every couple of years I think it can do you good. Different gyms mean different people, different equipment and sometimes a completely different way of looking at training.

Also, while I’m here, I’d like to put my two pence into one of those lifelong gym debates.

Old cast-iron weights feel heavier.

I don’t know why. I don’t know if it’s psychological, I don’t know if some of the older plates are genuinely slightly out, but give me an old battered cast-iron 20kg plate from a backstreet gym and somehow it feels heavier than one of the shiny ones in a commercial gym.

It just does.

You can argue with me if you want.

Backstreet Gyms

Backstreet gyms are a completely different animal.

Now I’m not saying you can’t start training in one, because of course you can. But generally speaking, these are where the big boys play.

You normally get more experienced lifters. Bodybuilders, powerlifters, strongmen, or just people who’ve basically spent half their lives underneath a barbell.

The equipment can be older, the plates are normally battered, and half the benches look like they’ve survived a war. But the atmosphere is completely different.

Even the music is different. And usually louder.

I’ve gone into backstreet gyms before with headphones and ended up not even needing them. I’ve also had my own music playing and somehow the gym music is still louder than my headphones.

That sort of gives you an idea of the place.

Usually there are fewer people in them too, and in my experience the membership can be a bit more expensive than your massive commercial chains. Not massively more expensive, but enough that you notice it.

The trade-off is the community.

Once you start training in a backstreet gym regularly, you actually get to know people. You see the same faces every week, you know what they train, you know who’s strong, and you know who is probably going to be using the squat rack before you even get through the door.

After a couple of years, you can genuinely feel like you know nearly everyone who trains there.

And I’ve always liked that.

It starts to feel less like a gym full of strangers and more like a little club.

Garage Gyms

Then there’s the garage gym.

You know exactly what I mean. A bench, a bar, maybe a small rack, and some homemade pulley system that looks questionable but somehow works.

And I might as well explain what mine was actually like.

COVID happened, the gyms shut, we were all locked down, and for me, if I don’t train for long enough I start feeling like crap. I look like crap and my general health starts going downhill.

So I basically decided my garage was becoming a gym.

I had a bench, an Olympic bar that I bought from a backstreet gym, two 30kg dumbbells, some random one-inch-hole plates that probably came to about 20kg altogether, and I screwed a pulley system into the roof.

That was it.

That was the gym.

And the barbell.

My God.

That fucking barbell.

It was bent, it was rusty and it was absolutely freezing.

I’m pretty sure the gym I bought it from had actually taken it out of use because one side was bent. But it was COVID, you couldn’t get equipment, I was desperate, so I bought it.

And if you’ve ever trained in a garage in the middle of winter, you’ll understand what I mean about the cold. You know when you hold an ice cube for too long and your hands start going numb?

Yeah.

That was basically my bar.

Every session.

The big thing with a garage gym though is you have to get creative.

You can’t just think, right, I’ll go do lat pulldowns, because you don’t have one.

So you think, right then, how am I training my back?

Pull-ups, rows, some questionable pulley system attached to the roof, whatever works.

And if you haven’t got enough weight to max out on bench, you have to find another way. Slow the reps down, pause them, control the negative, actually feel the muscle working, or just rep the fuck out of it.

It teaches you that you don’t always need another plate to make something harder.

And the atmosphere is completely different as well because you’re on your own. Nobody watching, nobody to impress, nobody talking to you between sets and nobody distracting you.

But there’s nobody giving you that extra bit of energy either.

So you have to create it yourself.

Music on, get your head right, and train.

That’s it.

And there’s something I actually like about that, because nobody cares what you’re lifting when nobody is there. You find out pretty quickly whether you genuinely enjoy training or whether you enjoy being seen training.

Hotel Gyms

Then you’ve got hotel gyms.

Now I’ve only trained in a few of these, so I’m not going to pretend I’m some expert on hotel-gym culture.

But they’re weird.

You go in and there’s always a couple of guys who look extremely professional. One earpiece in, on the phone, walking on the treadmill while apparently running a business empire at the same time.

Then there’s usually an older bloke on one of them big exercise balls trying to do some kind of ab exercise.

I’m not always convinced he knows what he’s doing.

I definitely don’t.

Then there’s the changing room.

There is always, and I mean always, one older bloke wearing nothing but a towel.

And he takes an exceptionally long time.

You go in, he’s there. You get changed, still there. You train, come back, still there.

At some point you start wondering whether the man actually has a room in the hotel or whether he just lives in the changing room.

Hotel gyms are just different.

Most of the people in there aren’t there because the gym is their main focus. They’re working, travelling, on holiday or just killing time.

Then someone like me walks in looking around thinking, right, how the fuck am I doing a full workout with this?

But training is training.

You use what you’ve got.

So Which Gym Is Best?

Personally, I don’t think there is one gym for everyone.

Obviously I wouldn’t recommend using a hotel gym as your main training base, but training is training. If there’s equipment there, you can normally find some way of getting a decent session in.

What I do recommend though is changing gyms every couple of years, and there’s one main reason for that.

For some reason, whenever I train in a completely new gym, I’m absolutely dialled in.

I don’t know whether it’s anxiety because I’m somewhere new, maybe it’s me subconsciously trying to prove myself in front of a new group of people, or probably a bit of both.

But when I first walk into a new gym, I barely speak. My rest periods are short, I’m looking around at everything, watching how people train, working out what equipment is where, and somehow while all this is happening I’m instinctively trying to smash some heavy weight.

You just train.

Then after a while, the place becomes normal. You know everyone, you know where everything is, people start talking to you and you settle in.

And that’s not a bad thing at all.

But sometimes it’s good to shake it up again.

So I’m not saying commercial gyms are better. I’m not saying backstreet gyms are better, and I’m not saying everyone needs to build a garage gym.

I’ve got something from all of them.

Commercial gyms gave me variety. Backstreet gyms gave me community. My garage gym taught me how to train with fuck all. Hotel gyms taught me that sometimes you just use whatever is there and get the session done.

The best gym is probably the one that keeps you turning up.

But every couple of years, I’d still recommend walking through a different door.