War House Gym SATX — Local services in San Antonio

By far the greatest gym I have ever had the pleasure of stepping into. Let me start off by saying this is a real gym for people who want to put in the work in a facility owned and ran by people who care. The machines are top tier, a good number of them being made by one of the owners, Atom, himself. And the man doesn’t miss. His custom machines give some of the best muscle activation (e.g. spider press). And he’s always releasing new machines to add to his collection! And when machines do break (as they inevitably do), I have never seen a machine down for more than 48 hours. None of that “sorry we’re waiting on a part that’ll be here in 3-5 business months” garbage from mainstream gyms. Usually they’re back up in less than a day.

The gym community here itself feels like a family. Everyone from the patrons to the staff treats each other with utmost respect and kindness. Some awesome guys and gals who are always happy to help, offer assistance, or let you work in (as long as you rerack your weights). If you come in looking to start shit or cause drama, though, you’ll quickly find that Rule Number One (No Assholes) is strictly enforced. There’s no place for bad vibes in this family.

Despite being in a warehouse, the gym is incredibly clean. They have six (maybe seven?) individualized locking restrooms for you to shower and do your business in complete privacy, and it seems like someone is always cleaning to make sure everything stays sanitary. Paper towels throughout the floor are always stocked and if something isn’t right a staff member is on it making sure it’s fixed immediately.

Outside, they have a wellness patio, stocked with a massive sauna (that the owner built himself and is again the best gym sauna in SA, if not farther), cold plunges, inversion tables, and more. It’s extra on top of the membership, but these are the types things you’d never see from your Gold’s or LA Fitness gyms. Even Life Time’s facilities are always packed and you’d be paying more than the membership and wellness patio combined!

If you’re reading this, I highly recommend you come in for a day pass. $30 may seem steep at first glance, but I promise you it’s worth every penny. If I one day have to move, the thing I will be most upset about is leaving War...

I had high hopes for War House Gym, and in some ways, it lived up to the hype. Yes, the $30 day pass is nearly triple what other gyms charge, but honestly, it almost felt worth it—the lighting is perfect, the equipment is top-tier, and everyone there is locked in and working on themselves. It’s a beautiful facility, and I was fine with the lack of water fountains too.

But what completely ruined the experience was how I was treated by the staff. I bought a shirt from the gym—the only size available was 2X, but I still wanted one. After I changed into it, I asked a white, bald-headed employee with a neck tattoo where I could put the shirt I came in with. He casually told me, “Anywhere, bro,” so I set it by the stairs and even double-checked with him. He reassured me, “Yeah bro, that’s fine, don’t worry, I won’t let anything happen to it.”

Fast forward an hour and a half later, I’m leaving and ask what happened to my shirt—only to find out a female employee threw it in the trash. Her explanation? “I thought it was trash.” Meanwhile, the same bald guy was standing right there the whole time and said absolutely nothing. When I confronted him, he just brushed it off like, “It’s ok, you can just take one from the shelf.” So I did, but then another employee dug my original shirt out of the trash and handed it to me.

Not a single person looked me in the eye or said sorry. Not once.

That’s the part that stuck with me—the complete lack of accountability or basic respect. For a gym that wants to be top-tier, that kind of treatment is unacceptable. Great lighting and nice weights won’t make up for being treated like an...

The War House Gym is nothing short of incredible the atmosphere to the equipment to the people it's top tier in my opinion remember for everyone out there reading this is my personal opinion/experience/review so please don't get offended and at the end of the day take it with a grain of salt as I'm one person of many. Here goes Adam Steel the owner/manager is awesome, super friendly and helpful as well as knowledgeable about the facility and the equipment. The gym atmosphere is truly unique as it's not traditional the lighting is dark and underwhelming in a good way it allows you to buckle down and really focus on putting work into your workout but at the same time the accent lighting on the dumbbell rack are absolutely sick. They keep it a cool 80 degrees inside the facility so you will definitely be sweating there isn't traditional A/C more just giant industrial sized fans which work well. Then the equipment let me tell you state of the art they have everything you could ever need for practical fitness training to crossfit to extreme bodybuilding as well as the mirrors for posing to back it up in addition they have a full line of cardio equipment. Lastly the changing rooms are very nice private have a shower and plenty of space highly highly recommend this gym and will definitely be making my...