Fernwood - Should I Join?!

I am a member of Northside Fitness in Dickson. I work near the city and it is easy for parking mornings or after work. They also have a creche but not sure of the hours. I currently pay 33 per fortnight. The gym is open from 5.30 to 8.30 Mon to Thurs, 5.30 to 7.30 Fridays and 8.30 to 5.30 Sat also open Sundays 8.30 to 1.00. It’s a really friendly gym. Although I haven’t seen a lot of staff on the floor walking around I think this is the norm for most gyms. They will do a program for you when you sign up but not sure about a follow up. I am sure that they would help you with that as a member. Personally, I love this gym and currently have a trainer. The personal trainers at this gym are Team Fitness Trainers. I am not a skinny chick but not a huge whale either but I never feel self conscious at this gym. I find Fernwood and some other female gyms very clicky. Northside for me.

Hope this helps

SnapperJack said :

crackerpants said :

You could try the Edge Healthclub in Weston, if you’re local to the Woden/Weston Creek area. It’s a general gym – not ladies only – but they have a creche. Haven’t tried it myself but have heard good things from other mums with young babies.

I’d be a bit wary of the Edge. When I was at Cooleman Court a year or so ago they had a treadmill/exercise bike marathon involving their personal trainers and one of the participants was a rather nasty tattooed steroid user and dealer who I’ve seen at Woden Plaza a couple of times with his wife yelling the word “faggot” at a middle-aged Woden local.

I would feel very uncomfortable giving money to a gym which employed such a person.

Ok firstly, how do you know he is a roid dealer? do you buy roids from him? or do the people you know, love or work with buy their roids from him? What does his tattoos have anything to do with his personality? and he would not be the only man in this town to use the derogatory word you say he says… and you only seen him do that once right? and to a local no less!!! my god – what did the local actually say or do to get this derogatory word? most people don’t just randomly yell these words (unless one has Tourettes) i would bet my tooky that the “Woden Local” said something to him and”Tattoo trainer” yelled that they were a homosexual derogatory word

I don’t know this man your talking about, i don’t live in the area of the gym and till now i didn’t know it existed. I just hate hoity toity shitheads.

“a woden local” hilarious – does that mean i should have shown respect and adoration to the people who were once in Bernie Court hahah

crackerpants said :

You could try the Edge Healthclub in Weston, if you’re local to the Woden/Weston Creek area. It’s a general gym – not ladies only – but they have a creche. Haven’t tried it myself but have heard good things from other mums with young babies.

I’d be a bit wary of the Edge. When I was at Cooleman Court a year or so ago they had a treadmill/exercise bike marathon involving their personal trainers and one of the participants was a rather nasty tattooed steroid user and dealer who I’ve seen at Woden Plaza a couple of times with his wife yelling the word “faggot” at a middle-aged Woden local.

I would feel very uncomfortable giving money to a gym which employed such a person.

You could try the Edge Healthclub in Weston, if you’re local to the Woden/Weston Creek area. It’s a general gym – not ladies only – but they have a creche. Haven’t tried it myself but have heard good things from other mums with young babies.

Check carefully what you get at what price, and what you need to stay motivated. Last time I used Fernwood (a few years ago) you had to pay extra for what other clubs offered as part of a normal package, taking the price to double what i could get elsewhere. A key thing for me was the development of a program and periodic reviews of my fitness, milestones and program. to get this at Fernwood I had to pay extra for personal training if I wanted a program – and then it wasn”t up to par for me, and then if you wanted assessment of how you were travelling weight and measures wise you had to sign up for the diet/eating side of the business to get a consultant to talk to you – and of course diet etc.

While the machines and classes were decent, the staff were absent from the floor and I felt like I had to put my hand in my pocket – above an already above par price – for things that are standard at other gyms.

with Civic there is no convenient parking anywhere near that gym – if you have a young one you will find you have to pay for high cost parking in the Canberra Centre to access it. Woden is much better with the big carpark next door – but may be a problem if you are going when it is heavily used by workers.

My advice – check the inclusions very carefully and if you can get a 7 day test period I would take that to see if you like the environment and offerings. good luck

dpm said :

poetix said :

dpm said :

poetix said :

…As my focus is on strength, I didn’t want pink weights and Lycra….

Wow! Is the poetry cafe scene that hard core?!? Hahahaha! 🙂

Lifting the tone around here is hard enough…

And here I was thinking your arts skills were of a literary nature. I had no idea you were a musician too!

Well you weren’t expecting Poetix to be tone deaf were you?

poetix said :

dpm said :

poetix said :

…As my focus is on strength, I didn’t want pink weights and Lycra….

Wow! Is the poetry cafe scene that hard core?!? Hahahaha! 🙂

Lifting the tone around here is hard enough…

And here I was thinking your arts skills were of a literary nature. I had no idea you were a musician too!

dpm said :

poetix said :

…As my focus is on strength, I didn’t want pink weights and Lycra….

Wow! Is the poetry cafe scene that hard core?!? Hahahaha! 🙂

Lifting the tone around here is hard enough…

If reciprocal rights is important to you, I’d double-check on them with whichever branch of Fernwood you decide to go with. From memory (admittedly a few years back), they were oddly restrictive. I’m not certain as I never used them, but either you could only use certain branches under reciprocal arrangements, or you only had a certain number of reciprocal passes you could use at other branches.

It all seems like a thinly (pun) veiled cover for organised womens gangs with creches, The pink ladies, the flames etc, etc.

Aside from the horrendous pricing of some of them the only other thing that you have to look out for is the initiations. If you do them then you will be in the click and they wont talk behind your back no matter how fat you are, even if they cannot physically help it.

The initiations can vary from easy (Having a low fat full cream latte with 3 sugars and sayiongt that the other ladies choice of clothing does not make any of them look fat, no matter who they stand next to.) to the more severe (going to rival gym and saying other ladies jeggings make her look fat and then say: “oh sorry, they arent jeggings at all but actually jeans.” or leaving brand new large chocolate bars underneath windscreens wipers for when they walk out of the gym to cancel out any fitness gained.).

Choose wisely, and on the first day find the fattest person there and run/waddle straight up to them and take them out…..for cake.