City Sports Club — Attraction in San Francisco

Sad to say, this is some of the best we got for affordable gyms in SF, and the temperature 🌡 in the sauna is amazing, but the gym still suffers from too many shortcomings:

1. it takes forever for them to repair broken equipment
2. the gym is waaay to crowded; they should stay open at least an hour later during the week, and two hours later during the weekend.
3. they don't have any of the modern technology treadmills with wooden slats to protect people's knees
4. they have way too many bikes that are often empty and not enough treadmills, which are often taken and with people lining up just to warm up; clearly, they don't discriminate properly regarding what equipment people actually use
5. similarly, the massive dumbbells of 60 lbs and above are usually available in abundance, but it's insanely difficult to get a hold of some 20lbs, 25lbs, 27.5lbs, 30lbs which are very scarce or often seem non-existent. It's INSANE. They should have at least 4-8 pairs of intermediate weight dumbbells, as opposed to 1 or 2.
6. the same problem with machines: a few of them are empty-ish and never get used (except by people that settle for them because nothing else is available...), and the very good ones are insanely oversubscribed: lat pull down, hip abductor (they only have 1!!!), machine pec/delt fly (they have 2 and there are often lines of up to 4 or 5 people waiting for these!)
7. impossible to get a bench during the week if you workout after work
8. the rope and other equipment are available only for people that pay for a trainer; why on earth...?
9. the shower curtains are often moldy and nasty; they really should just stop using curtains altogether; they're a completely unnecessary expense for the gym and only generate more toxic plastic trash for the planet; plenty of gyms, swimming pools, high schools, and exercise venues in general have open showers, and that's perfectly functional; these ones are very large and with thick walls separating them anyway; why waste resources on curtains that get funky periodically and pollute the planet? It's just gross.
10. you will be enthusiastically and emphatically motivated to leave NOT A SECOND LATER after closing -sometimes even cantankerously. I understand this, but it again suggests the gym clearly needs to stay open later; there's evidently demand for it.
11. while the sauna temperature is pretty awesome, it's often hypercrowded, like the rest of the gym. If the showers weren't so gigantically wasteful and inefficient (with 1 ft thick walls in between them! The corner showers being double or tripple size), they could have a larger, more comfortable sauna, or perhaps add a steam room. People spend more time in the sauna than showering, so it makes more sense to make the sauna spacious (to enable more people to enjoy its health benefits) and not the other way around.
12. the men's locker room often stinks badly -not sure if it's a cleanliness or ventilation issue or both. The floor is also often wet. It would be helpful to have large signs around and a rule that people MUST dry up in the shower area, and not walk to the lockers all drenched dripping water. It turns into mud because of people that just arrived with their shoes on or are fully dressed and leaving, and whether you've just stepped out of the shower or out of your dress shoes to put on your sneakers, it's GROSS to step on the muddy watter on the floor with your bare feet or socks.
13. the temperature of the water in the swimming pool is too warm, the water often seems murky, in spite of being overchlorinated and again, it's just always overcrowded. You will NEVER get your own lane here to do some serious lap swimming. It would be great if the pool had at least 3 more lanes. I assure you, they WOULD be heavily used. We have a scarcity of good swimming pools in...

They only want to get you in the door. I first called to see if they had any specials/promotions/discounts going on, but they were extremely adamant on talking about it in person. We talked in person, but none of the discussion was about specials/promotions/discounts. Because there weren’t any. Fine. It was only $45 dollars anyways, and I only needed a month. Or so I thought. We entered my personal information in the computer and signed some digital paperwork when suddenly the checkout page showed $90. “Don’t worry, you won’t have to pay that, since you’re only here for a month”. I pulled out my card and the reader said $90. I brought that up to him and he acted all “oh-I-thought-you-knew”— apparently I also would have had to pay some additional annual fee. If I had known that, whether through the website, phone, or in person, I wouldn’t even have bothered to get that far. As I was about to walk out, he mentions some $75 dollar one-month student membership. Fine, the location of the gym was too convenient to pass up, though everything else I felt I drew the short end of the stick.

The facilities are average. There are a lot of machines and weights, but there are even more people. Imagine going to the gym right now and that machine you’re going to start your workout off with. It won’t be like that in real life. There’s so many people that the buildings’ internal temperature is abnormally high due to the body heat. It feels like a sauna even if you are weight lifting or on the bikes. At least I’m working off some water weight from all the sweat.

Today was my last day, so I figured I would get one last good workout here. Or so I thought. Yesterday, I worked out, and I checked in with an employee before I left about when my membership would be over. She turned out to be a personal trainer, so she pointed me to someone else and said, “He would know.” So I asked the same thing. “Yeah, it looks like your membership ends tomorrow.” “Sounds good. Just to confirm, though, does that mean tomorrow is my last day or today?” “Tomorrow.” “So I’m good to get in one more workout tomorrow?” “Yes.” No. It was not. I woke up early and prepared to get a good final workout at this gym. I did not. I could not log into the app to check in, so I spoke to the front desk associate who said my membership ended today and YESTERDAY was my last day. Completely wasted my time. Again, if I had known, I wouldn’t even have went that far. Maybe it was just a mistake, one that shouldn’t have happened, but I wouldn’t be surprised if I ended up in a cycle of them just trying to get me...

If you want an inexpensive place to work out & don't care about being a member of a multi million dollar train wreck in progress, this place is for you. The owners don't care about keeping the club clean or maintained. I have been a member for the last few months & have never once seen anyone cleaning the bathrooms, showers or pool area. In fact just today, I entered right upon opening at 8.00 am (which is another problem-the hours don't cater to morning people) and to my utter amazement the bathrooms were filthy. (Ill spare you the details as its to gross to relive) That means no one cleaned the night before. Not to mention the filth & water build up around the pool & hot tub areas. Watching oblivious members swash through the puddles with there shoes was extremely discomforting. Besides it being unsanitary, it's a serious accident waiting to happen. If you enjoy lifting weights, beware. Several problems: There is a gated off what seems to be an abandoned "construction project" to fix the broken floors" directly in front of the weight racks. Unfortunately, it occupies a space which span's at least 20 feet wide which significantly reduces the available space to work out. Im told this has been like this for many months. Second. The lighter 10 to 20 lb. weights are almost non existence. I believe there's only one set of each in those weight classes. Good luck finding what you need. (they also keep the heavier weights on the top racks which is highly unorthodox) Lastly, the club has no culture of maintenance. There are serious signs of decay & neglect throughout the gym. Besides the broken showers, agonizing long construction projects & highly questionable cleaning ethics, the paint is starting to peal in many places. I would bet my last dollar those carpets (especially the stair cases) have never been shampooed. The showers by the pool area are non functional with no fix in sight. Very sad to watch this happen to what appeared to be a very good idea filling the needs of affordable work out facility in the Sunset. This place is in dire need of attention from the investors. If I were management, I would immediately hire a full time maintenance person who's job is to keep the locker rooms, pool area & carpets cleaned...