NYU Students Pay High Expenses For Outside Fitness Resources
On a college budget, even the cheapest gym memberships in the East Village end up costing a lot. However, the change of scenery and variety of classes offered exclusively by certain fitness facilities make the price worth it for many NYU students.
“Equinox is seriously a lifestyle. The members as well as the staff take working out far beyond the gym,” said Ceasar Palotta, a 20-year-old NYU student, admiring the hard work of Equinox employees. Being previously employed by SoulCycle Noho, Ceasar has had various experiences with different fitness facilities in the East Village. At Equinox, a single location membership costs $210, an all NYC locations membership $235, and a worldwide costs $290. Ceasar has an All Access Fitness membership at Equinox, costing him $235 per month. A hard price to pay for a college student, it’s more than worth it for Ceasar. Referring to Equinox as a “club” rather than a gym, Ceasar mentioned that its “advisors help you to calculate your BMI and other important fitness indexes when taking your Equi-fit session,” explaining the ways in which Equinox has benefited his fitness life.
All NYU students are given free access to fitness facilities as included in tuition, the popular ones being 404 Fitness and Palladium Athletic Facility. Though NYU offers fully equipped gyms and classes such as Zumba, yoga, and spinning, students sometimes prefer to use outside resources. The reason for that being mainly the fact that NYU gyms are crowded most of the time, close at 9 and 10 p.m. (2–3 hours earlier than outside gyms), and students prefer to have fresh faces and a supporting team motivating them to workout. Though the NYU facilities themselves are modern and clean, there are no instructors or employees that are there to help and encourage you as there are in other places.
From kickboxing, to spinning and running, the East Village has hundreds of options for students that want to escape the NYU fitness scene, Crunch gym being one of them.
Crunch offers students a $99.99 monthly membership fee with the first month free, and there is no cancellation fee, according to their website. To have access to more than one location, the fee goes up to $114.99, a change that might want to be made for the students that like to go home often. Crunch offers 41 different types of classes such as Hot Yoga, spinning classes (The Ride), Street Jazz, Motus, and Boingi.
Crunch salesman Ronald Anchia said, “it’s just a different atmosphere. Sometimes they just don’t want to be in an NYU setting,” explaining why students are willing to pay $99.99 per month for a membership at Crunch. While he mentioned that students don’t want to see familiar faces while they work out, he also pointed out the benefit of, “the availability of equipment at all times,” and noted how cramped it can get at other places.
Classes at Crunch and other facilities are always kept at a high energy level. The instructor’s purpose is to make you feel good about yourself and your workout, and they push you to give 100 percent the whole time. For those who have trouble with self-motivation, it’s the perfect way to get going.
Abbey Leigh Robbins, 19, has been keeping up with her fitness since her days on the rowing team at her high school. Wanting to uphold her fitness levels, she joined a Muay Thai gym in the city where she took boxing classes for a $150 monthly membership fee. “Fighting is very cathartic and as a girl it’s expected that we don’t get physical, but I had always tried to channel my frustrations when I worked out,” said Abbey, of her reason for joining the Muay Thai gym. She continued, “there’s definitely something specific about being the crap out of someone, crossing some type of barrier that you didn’t know you could, and you get some high out of it afterward, especially when it’s in an organized manner and you respect your partner,” describing the sensations she felt in a Muay Thai class, which made the price worth it. Abbey also worked at the NYU Palladium gym at the time, which is what helped her pay for the membership.
Unless one has properly trained his or her self, it takes being told exactly what to do to know how to do it correctly. For Abbey and many others, these kinds of fitness classes are the one place that they can let go of stress and focus on one thing while having an instructor motivate them: something worth paying for.
Popular facilities in the East Village include Planet Fitness, Blink Fitness, Crunch, and various specialty facilities like SoulCycle (spinning), Mile High Run Club (running), and Work Train Fight (boxing). Planet Fitness offers a $10 monthly membership fee for access to their home club and fitness training, and a $19.99 monthly membership fee for a “black card” which is their highest and all access membership type, a great deal for students. Blink Fitness has a $1 joining fee and $25 per month for access to every club in the city, a pretty good deal.
Though these prices seem great, it’s what you’re getting that matters. Planet Fitness and Blink Fitness may have great deals, but they don’t offer the various types of classes that people often look for, and their gyms aren’t as big as more price-y ones. People prefer being told what to do and pay more money for that.
Personal training prices for Blink are higher. Prices are as low as $125 for personal training four times a month for a half hour, and as high as $625 12 times a month for a whole hour. SoulCycle costs $34 per class, Mile High Run Club costs $32 per class, and Work Train Fight offers a $97 deal for their new members, which includes unlimited classes for one month. One class might not be too expensive, but prices can add up easily.
Ceylin Torgay is a 19-year-old Nike ambassador at NYU and a sports management major. Growing up, her mother would run marathons and her father was a basketball player, making her athletically inclined since a young age. As a Nike ambassador and through Nike+ Training Club, she has many opportunities to try out different athletic locations in NYC, such as SoulCycle and Mile High Run Club, for free, as a method of advertisement for the athletic places. By doing this, she doesn’t spend any money, but donates her time instead. Ceylin, however, does also try things outside of Nike but has a system. “You don’t have to be tied down to one place,” she advises, “try a free class at as many gyms as possible.” By taking as many free trial classes as you can, it allows you to workout at no expense.
Ceylin did, however, pay the $90 first month membership fee at a boxing gym, which she did because she prefers classes over self-workouts. “When you’re around people who are doing what you are, you are motivated, and when someone is telling you what to do you feel obligated to do what they’re saying,” she said of classes.
When it came to boxing, Ceylin knew what she wanted. “A boxing class in New York is $30 and I paid $90 to go for a month and it was different because everyone there was a grown up and the new type of niche was interesting too,” she said. When asked why she discontinued it, she replied, “well because the next month was $200 and I wasn’t going to pay that.”
She also mentioned that all the athletic places she tries are just temporary and not something that she’s interested in paying a monthly membership for, aside from the boxing gym. She also runs marathons in NY, such as NYC Runs and NY Road Runners, which she pays about $30 for each but also says it’s worth it. “When you think about what your priorities are when it comes to expenses, to me that’s more important,” she said, speaking of fitness expenses.
Miranda Viars, 20, has her priorities in a different order. “I only would if I didn’t have access to the NYU gyms,” she said, explaining why she doesn’t pay for a gym membership. While Miranda loves to workout and does feel that she needs, “some sort of gym access,” she recognizes how expensive gyms are in NYC and decided to make use of the resources NYU provides. She continued, “if the NYU gym doesn’t have a machine that I want, it’s worth saving the money for food and fun events to like adjust my workouts.” Miranda works two jobs, and though fitness is important to her, spending extra money on it isn’t at the top of her priority list.
Doing the same routine and using the same machines over and over again can get boring. Trying new things can’t hurt. To anyone looking for something new and exciting in their fitness life, paying for a class or membership just might be worth it.