The Zoo Health Club Seabrook — Attraction in Seabrook

This is really 4.5 stars. First off, this is the best dollar-for-dollar set of features you'll find in a gym on the seacoast. Far superior to Planet Fitness across the street, more affordable than Choice Fitness in Salisbury, not the insane price of CrossFit XYZ, with a lot of features. That being said the club is a bit rough around the edges. So while I definitely recommend it, it has some minor quirks.

Let's get to the good stuff. Being brand new, all the equipment is new. And unlike PF, this is a gym where real lifters can find a home. Any gym with 150 lb. dumbbells is a good gym! I'll never use them...but nice to aspire to them. I mean, PF, doesn't even have 80's. But even better for lifters with aches and pains are a great selection of plate loaded equipment. Chest / tris / shoulders / calves ... everything one would want for plate loaded (well...except for glute drives).

What's also nice is they gave the lugheads their own room. For people pushing truly serious weight, there's a separate space to do that. It's a great way to make room for more casual lifters (like me) while giving the real bruisers a place to work they way they want to.

Classes...spin, Les Mills, full body, cardio...this is where the real value is. There's some room for improvement around how the classes are run (a rough edge), and the offerings are still sparse (reasonable given the newness of the gym), but it's great that there are three separate spaces (open floor / spin / functional fitness) to allow for all types of classes. Once this really gets rolling this will be another big asset.

There is child care too! I don't know the details, as thankfully those days are past. But I know how big a deal this can be.

Bathrooms are the #1 rough edge. They're adequate. There are showers and stalls and a sauna! But very limited lockers and benches. And the showers have water-on-the-floor issues that they'll need to get ahead of before their new space gets dank.

There are a couple of oddities in the functional fitness room. The kettlebell rack is awkward (why is the top shelf so high?). There are no clips for the farmer's carry. The bumper plates rack on edge making them prone to falling. But...rough edges. It's the right idea and it's 90% of the way there.

Yeah yeah yeah there are treadmills and recumbent bikes and stair steppers and blah blah. If that's all one really wants, then just PF it. This is a gym where there's a full array of ways to workout. And besides, does PF have motorless treadmills? Nope!

Oh, and did I mention...

Completely baffled at the high rating of this gym, I suppose giving free merch away for 5 star reviews will do that. The machines and gym floor are disgusting, collecting tufts of hair and dust, machines dusty and covered in dried sweat. The saunas have collected dirt to the point where it’s visible through the slots in the floor. The paper towels intended for wiping down machines are either not present or jammed in the dispenser. Kind of disturbing that’s it’s not usually an option to clean machines in between uses. Seems like minimal effort with a vacuum and cleaning rag would make a HUGE difference overall. However, I’m not sure that there is any cleaning happening on the gym floor since there is more dust collected in the same spots months later 😬. Women’s bathroom has always been clean, with the exception of the sauna. I love how big this gym is and the fact that they offer classes, 2 stars for that. It seems that they have only minimally maintained the space. When trying to bring any of these concerns (cleanliness, broken equipment) to their attention via messaging on instagram, the messages are read with no reply. There is so much potential, very sad it’s been so neglected in multiple ways . Other locations seem to be doing very well. Pictures shown are by the squat racks and one of the ellipticals (all of the ellipticals look this way, didn’t seem necessary to take 5 pictures of...

The club bathrooms are not clean, whoever arrives first for a class usually has to sweep the floor, they often do not have enough coverage when an instructor needs to find a substitute and 3 different times that I was present an unqualified student filled in for the instructor. I signed up only for Bodypump classes which over time the class was changed and other exercise offered. Not at all what I signed up for. I tried to cancel my membership for all the reasons above and was told if i stopped payment, i would be turned over to credit. Definitely not worth the money, there's plenty of other gyms...