Fit to be Tried

National Post

Saturday January 8th, 2005

There are no excuses this year, with our hand roundup of Toronto gyms. So get out there, for pity’s sake-you don’t even have to open the phone book!

As a chef might discover a foreign city through its restaurants, or an art lover by touring museums, our correspondent Ben Kaplan , a transplanted New Yorker who ate his way through the holidays as if performing a stunt on Fear Factor, explored his new Canadian postal code by guest-passing its health clubs. Penniless but determined, he made a New Year’s resolution to hit the gyms harder that his Xbox control. And since most clubs worthy of their treadmills offer potential members a free day pass, Kaplan was able to field test these weight rooms, and by extension, Toronto, for the price of a TTC token. Talk about hitting the bars: Dumbell ratings are out of a possible five.

By Ben Kaplan

Level IV Fitness (533 College St., 416-927-8774; $74/month)
***
Among the best of the city’s sleek boutique gyms. The members of this hip little club seem to have iPods growing out of their track pants. Wooden floors and large windows create a handsome main room, with additional studios or yoga and spinning. Tucked away on the fifth floor of a nondescript building, Level IV has the feel of a nightclub’s VIP room. The equipment is modern; however during boxing class the smack of the speed bags gets annoying-maybe that’s why members shove iPods down their shorts.

System Fitness (2100 Bloor St W. 416-762-6262; $39/month)
**
This newly renovated red, black and silver club has a caffeinated Olivia Newton-John Lets Get Physical vibe. There’s a cool indoor track and a supplement store that sells vats of hardcore nutrient gunk. The free weights are downstairs, where it’s mostly men, thus completely grimy, and looks as though a barbell-delivery truck spilled over-you’d have to be Dominic Da Vinci to find two 20-pound curl bars that match. But it’s next to an LCBO, so it scores half a dumbbell for proximity to booze.

Bally Total Fitness (185 The West Mall 416-620-5006; $100 initiation, $44/month)
**
Ball is the Starbucks of gyms: expensive, extravagant and inundated with loud cellphone talkers. This branch has a coed sauna and swimming pool and charges $9 less that the Eaton Center location (see below) for the universal Bally pass, which allows members to use all seven clubs. There’s an elevator from the huge weight room to the 25-metre pool but that money should have gone to the showers: Since there are no private stalls, you may find yourself wading in some hairy dude’s reservoir of just-spat out Crest.

YMCA ( 20 Grosvenor St., 416-975-9622; $60 initiation $47/month)
*****
JCC (750 Spadina Ave., 416-924-6211; $60; month)
****
The YMCA’s executive club, which costs about twice as much as the regular membership, is among the most opulent gym packages in the city. Housed in a private change room with the carpet and marble benches, it has a sauna, steam room, whirlpool and futuristic weight set, , plus access to the YMCA’s four squash courts, pickup soccer, badminton and full-court basketball games, swimming pool and decent sushi for $3.75. Across town, the recently renovated Miles Nadal JCC also has full-court basketball, whirlpool and sauna, plus two masseuses on staff. The music-less weight room doesn’t inspire, though the bubbly staff compensate. Both denominational gyms have hugely diverse memberships, but the winner is the YMCA by a latte.

Venice Fitness (393 King St. W., 416-341-0606; $99 initiation, $65/month)
****
Perfect for the tough guy who likes having his nails done, this boutique gym has hardwood floors, Venetian columns, mirrors with gold trim and walls painted blue and gold, though the ads for a massage therapist Scotch-taped to the treadmills kill the chic “rich Average Joe” vibe. The machines look as if they were unwrapped this Christmas, and the slate steam room’s scorching-hot but real (well-groomed) men should be able to take the heat.

Rhinos Gym (3415 Dundas St, W., 416-604-8630; $35/month)
**
A throwback in an era of overdone clubs, this obsessively maintained weight room is open 24hrs for members who drive taxicabs. A Black Sabbath CD plays on repeat and adds to the feeling that these folks-thin, fat, Indian, women, black, white, many with beards-are in the same motorcycle gang. Every barbell is in the right place, but wear flip-flops on the cold bathroom floor: the smell of athlete’s foot hangs in the air.

Trainers Fitness Center (754 Bathurst St., 416-536-7444; $44 initiation $44/month)
**
At this unpretentious two-story club you won’t fell a million eyes on your haircut. Chunky equipment sits on the black rubber mats and club members sport interesting facial hair and tattoos. Now magazine says this is the best place to ogle celebrities, but on the day of my visit the only famous people here are Iggy Pop and OutKast on the radio. The cool, however, is too over-the-top: we don’t like our shower turning cold when a toilet is flushed.

Wellington Club (111 Wellington St., W., 416-362-2582; $450 initiation, $120/month)
***
If the Battlestar Galactica were a downtown sports club, it would look like this five-story gym mini-mall. A hangout for the Bay Street crowd, it has natural lighting-floor-to ceiling windows, squash leagues, leather couches, laundry service and Internet loaded computers. The silver-and-burgundy carpets make the main gym feel like an Arab Emirates baccarat den, but the decadent change rooms are equipped with whirlpool, sauna and shoeshine machine: It’s almost as lush as the YMCA.

Gold’s Gym (4141 Dixie Rd., 905-629-2348; $33/month)
Dumbell rating: 0
Ontario’s only branch of North America’s largest gym chain is buried behind a Burger King in a Mississauga strip mall. The club is one giant fluorescent-lit room where hulking members wear weight belts and spill on to the dirty abdominal mats in line for the two squat machines. This is the gym with the scariest members: Don’t dare look anyone’s boyfriend or girlfriend.

King’s Mill Club (3300 Bloor St., W., 416-231-3000; $99 initiation, $69/month)
***
The staff at this large boutique gym, one of the 10 glitzy clubs run by mostly older female clientele. Looking for a place to do crunches, I pass the stretching room for nursing moms so often I’m afraid I’ll be arrested. Seniors’ classes meet three times a week, and all the creature comforts-sauna, steam room, whirlpool, free parking and towels-are accounted for.

Extreme Fitness (4950 Yonge St. 416-222-0342; $59/month)
*****
Dollar for dollar the city’s best gym (and not just because the treadmills look onto the aerobics studio) this winding split-level club has a saltwater pool you’d swear was a gimmick if it didn’t feel as revitalizing as the Mediterranean. It has an excellent slate steam room, ceramic tiles, 75 weekly aerobics classes, coed whirlpools, pointless but interesting art and $20 parking for the year. It’s a haul from downtown, so remember your soap.

Epic Fitness (9 St. Joseph St., 416-960-1705; $42/month)
****
This 85% gay club offers an unusual experience for a straight man: You sense people are staring at you then you realize you’re just standing in front of the weight. Epic is a spacious three-storey club with wooden beams and club with wooden beams and floors and a DJ who sells his mix tapes for $30. Definitely not for everybody, but it’s more stylish than most other clubs.

Eaton Centre:
Good Life (2 Queen St. W., 416-599-0430; $56/month) Bally Total Fitness (250 Yonge St., 416-408-4856; $62/month)
***
Finally, Heaven on Earth for my mother-a place where you can shop and do step aerobics under one roof. Both Good Life and Bally Total Fitness are fast paced with members who are hip mall staffers on break. Bally is the more luxuriant of the two, with Pilates classes, free towels, Estella Warren doppelgangers and nine cable TVs. Good Life has more people in blue jeans that stairmasters and, on the day of my visit, a can of Dr. Pepper spilled on the floor. But it does have the funkiest stereo I have encountered, where you can bring your own CDs or listen to what other members have playing. Both score three dumbbells, but the winner is Bally’s be a bench press.

Mack’s Gym (2160 Dundas St. W., 416-533-0333; $33/month)
***
Mack Miya, 81, is a Japanese former logger from Vancouver and one time weightlifting champion of the world. At his eponymous gym, raw meat wouldn’t be out of place in the cellar, and the mirrors are flecked with the spittle of hardcore weightlifters form the past 60 years. The equipment is old, the place is warm and who knows what’s lurking in the showers, but Mack’s Gym will survive any trend: Miya is too strong to stop training.

King West Club (266 King St. W., 416-260-9911; $59/month)
*****
Opened in November, this warm little basement boutique one-ups the clubs with plasma TVs: It windows have views of tourists shivering in line for Mamma Mia!. With its brick walls and exposed beams, it has a comfortable ski-lodge vibe and, if inspiration strikes you, you can run on the $10,000 WoodWay treadmills without shoes because they’re made from the same rubber as prosthetic limbs.

Strictly Fitness (4646 Dufferin St., 416-663-0000; $39.95.month)
****
This 24-hour, sever-day-a-week 50,000-square-foot multiplex has 450 free parking spots, 20 StairMasters, 20 treadmills, whirlpool, sauna, steam room, a women’s area, babysitting department, a proshop the sells Nike and Adidas sneakers, a boxing ring, swimming pool, newsletter-even a restaurant that serves liver and onions for $10. For the person who wants to live at their gym, welcome home.

Premier Fitness Club(1040 Islington Ave., 416-236-3451; $40/month)
Don’t be a dumbell!
It has perfect equipment, a boxing ring and trainers who look as of they walked off the set of the O.C., so why did this suburban superclub score so low? Because its beautiful members have wandering eyes, and the young locals, dance music and eager staff make this big booming club seem more like a pick-up joint than a gym. Better to be soft-stomached and doughy than for you or your loved on to be led into temptation.

Plaza Club (100 Yonge St., 416-869-3900; $49 initiation $79/month)
****
The sign in the bathroom says “Please limit yourself to five towels,” and the StarTrac treadmills have built in fans. This impressive two-storey club, all wooden floors and wide windows, offers the works, including The New York Times, tanning beds and posture-assessment classes. Nikki Antonio’s ebullient “Boot Camp” class was the perfect way to shake off the New Year’s holidaze.