Joining a gym

Somewhere along the line I decided I did not have enough Taiwan adventures and decided I needed to join a gym. Honestly though, I hadn't been to a gym at this point in nearly two years mostly due to travels and then the lockdowns in Toronto, and let's just say it was showing and not in a good way.

Step one - scour the net for options. I got lead to the following conclusions:


  • Avoid World Gym at all costs
  • Consider using the gyms based on pay per minute
  • Consider other gyms

And so my journey began. First stop was the New Taipei City Tucheng Civil Sports Center. This place pretty much has it all. A gym, skating rink, spin bikes, ping pong and billiard tables. I considered the pay as you go option, but here's how it would work. To use the gym facilities it is $1 NTD per minute, there is limited equipment, and it was extremely busy. The spin classes would cost $100 per class. As I spend roughly 1.5 hours at the gym at a time it would cost me $90 NTD per visit and at 4 times a week roughly a total of $1,440 per month. If I was to attend spinning classes that would add to the total.


Second stop was at Dream Fitness - they offer a 4 months membership at $788 NTD per month with a signup fee of $1,000 which they will reduce to $500 if you ask. This is actually the cheapest option that I found and the shortest contract term. That said their equipment is inferior but the gym is relatively quiet.

Third stop - Fitness Factory - they have superior equipment, it's all Life Fitness and Hummer with plenty of cardio, free weights, and universal machines, but they also have spin classes. They offered the following package - $1,500 to sign up, $1,000 administration fee and $1,288 per month based on a 12 months contract. They don't offer shorter terms. After a bit of negotiating made the $1,500 fee disappear. In return I had to pay the $1,000 administration fee, $1,288 per month and an additional $1,000 for another two months. Overall my contract there is for 14 months. As I work out and enjoy spinning, I decided to join this gym as a one stop. Note, that to get the reduced offer here I had to negotiate hard, and even told them I would get my membership from Costco. Costco sells their memberships for nearly the identical price, but I would have had to pay for the full year up front. On the plus side no haggling required with Costco.



This ended my gym shopping experience. There are lots of options available here and this isn't an exhaustive list. The three places are all within a 7 minute walk from me which is extremely convenient.

Comments

  1. UnknownMay 20, 2021 at 1:21 PM

    I no understand. So Costco offer gym services as part of their ecosystem of food and ancillary services??

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. UnknownMay 20, 2021 at 1:26 PM

      It's interesting how Costco has capitalized into fitness services outside of North America. Would you say that the percentage of Taiwanese that have gym memberships more or less than in North America? I would say less largely due to the differences in diet between the two regions.

      Delete
    2. Dan Bales-KoganMay 21, 2021 at 5:46 AM

      Costco sells gift cards for various things at a discount. For instance in Canada they sell cards worth $50 for pizza for $40.
      Here there's one for a gym membership.
      It makes sense here as they have claw machines and others where you can get actual items.

      Delete

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