Curves (Fitness)

Is anyone a member of Curves?

There is one a few blocks from me, so I stopped in today to ask about memberships.

The sign up is $199.00, and the monthly rate is $49.00 if you do preauthorized chequing for a minimum of 12 months. Otherwise it's $59.00 per month and you stop in and pay each month.

If you lapse your membership and want to sign up again, you have to pay the $199.00 again.

They don't have any treadmills there, and all of the machines are manual so according to the girl you get your cardio and resistance all in one 30 minute session, 3 times per week.

There is no shower area. I don't know about a change room. Everyone I saw coming and going were in their work out clothing.

Currently I pay $48.30 at a Wellness Institute that has a large variety of machines for cardio, resistance and weights. An in door and out door track, a sauna, whirlpool, shower, locker room, heated therapy pool, aquafit classes, yoga classes, aerobic classes and group sports if you want.

I love where I'm going but it's so darn far away that it makes for a 5 hour day by the time I travel there, do my stuff, wait for my ride and travel home again. I like the idea of going to someplace closer to where I live, but I don't want to pay more to get less, unless it's actually going to benefit me.

Does anyone have any personal experience with Curves as a member, or know anyone who goes?

I'm not a member myself, so can't say much, but I do know a few people that have been going there for ages and LOVE it.

Good luck!

I've debated on going a few times as we only have one gym in our small little town and a curves. I didn't realize it was that expensive to sign up. I should have signed up when they were doing their specials... like $30 registration fee.

Originally Posted by Zooy

I've debated on going a few times as we only have one gym in our small little town and a curves. I didn't realize it was that expensive to sign up. I should have signed up when they were doing their specials... like $30 registration fee.

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Right now where I live there is a 30% discount on the registration fee. So you pay $139 instead of $199, and you get the first month free.

Oh, and with the preauthorized chequing plan you get a card that allows you to go to any Curves location. If you pay by the month at the location, you can only go to that one location.

I was going there about 5 months ago. Some of the women there absolutely loved it, swore by it and have been going forever. But for me, it just wasnâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]t my thing. I hated that just when I felt I was working a body part I had to switch spots. I was hardly sore the next day, and it was so repetitive I just got bored. I stopped going after about 1.5 months and I was going 3 days a week. I find I get the same amount of exercise playing and walking my dog, and its cheaper…and cuter lol.

To each their own though, Iâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]ve met people who hated it, and people who loved it. I guess you just got to try it and see.

Oh yes, on a side note I hated that there was no shower… hello? No shower? What the hell?! It sucked that I couldnâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]t go work out, then go do my errands because I was sweaty and smelly… I just donâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]t understand why you wouldnâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]t have showers.

I go there and they just got smart machines which make them harder now. I pay 34 a month because I use the smart machines. I used to pay 29 per month. I also do teh Wii Fit.

Originally Posted by silvionc

I hated that just when I felt I was working a body part I had to switch spots. I was hardly sore the next day, and it was so repetitive I just got bored.

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That's one of my big concerns.

I was never big on exercise anyway, and then I got sick and could hardly walk and was put on a no exersise order for about 2 years. So I got very deconditioned.

I've been seriously pushing myself at the gym to the point I'm getting injured because my body is still getting used to the fact that it went from zero to 100 in 60 seconds. I've had a dislocated right shoulder and now my left shoulder and neck have been giving me grief and I'm having to see the chiropractor and lay off the gym for a few weeks.

The only cardio machine they have there is a stepper and I can't do that because it hurts my knees and the foot that I broke. The other machines are weights and I need to go at my own pace and not rush and power through them.

So my concern is this whole circuit thing they have and everyone changing machines at the same time. I may only be able to get one set done, or 1 1/2 sets before having to change machines.

And I don't like the idea of no showers either. I'm large and tend to sweat a great deal while working out. I don't want to have to travel home in a public transit vehicle in my sweaty clothing, and I don't want to put on other clothing over my sweaty body, because that is just double the laundry!

I visited our local one about a year and a half ago when i was deciding on gyms and decided not to join. They are WAY too tiny imo. for the stuff i like to do. They have no gym setting (just a small room with exercise equipment set up in a circle), they had no locker room - just a small bathroom, no pool, no big cardio section (which is huge for me- i'm a cardio junkie!!!) so it was just not the right fit for me. The people however were very nice- so i did like that.

I also however did not like the way that they did one exercise and then so quickly moved on to the next- i don't feel like you get the full benifits or appropriate time for your workout when you do that, but i could be wrong. Also, when i was there the trainer had one lady doing reps on one of the hip abtuctor (sp?) machines WAY too fast- she could have hurt herself....the reps should have been slower and more concentrated- that told me right there that the trainer didn't know what they were doing. So all of those reasons are why i didn't join.

I work out at our city's Rec center. I love it there! It's cheap because we get a discount since DH is a city employee- so it's like $30 a month for both of us (I got a discount when i was a city employee too before we got married and it was $20 a month for me) It's $30 a month for the whole family- and if we ever have kids - the price doesn't change eithor!!! They have daycare, a pool, cardio room, weight room, gym (basket ball court with a running track on top), swimming pools, any class you could possibly want, a changing room, showers...etc. It's great! Curves was way more expensive with much less to offer imo.

I recently checked out the Curves near me and decided it wasn't the right thing at all. It seems to be more about shaping your figure than about building actual health, y'know? All the starting and stopping really undermines any aerobic or cardiovascular benefit, it seems to me.

Also, it seems to me that a place with so few machines, no showers, and no sauna or whirlpool ought to be commensurately cheaper than fitness centers with some actual options -- but Curves is not cheaper at all. Makes no sense to me.

And they had this device into which they entered my height and weight to calculate my BMI. It had little handles on the sides, and the woman made me hold onto it while it did the calculation! She told me that the machine was "reading" my BMI through my hands.

Well, that's just plain malarkey! I questioned her on it: "What else does it need to calculate BMI besides the height and weight you already entered? Is there something else you meant to say it's reading?"

"No", she insisted, "it's reading your BMI through your skin."

"Then why did you have to enter the height and weight at all?"

"Well, to help it along," she said, and winked at me.

And thus ended their credibility!

Originally Posted by laureen227

the 'cardio' portion is due to the jogging between stations w/machines - everything is self-monitored, so it's your option to skip a machine, or jog fast/slow/etc.

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I can't jog. For one I'm heavy and it's difficult. Two, I get very short of breath. Three it hurts my knees; and four, I don't have much range of motion in my right ankle and my left foot that I broke still hurts when I put too much impact on it, like bicycle, stepper, jogging. The treadmill is about the only cario machine that my body seems to handle without causing me gross pain.

So at this point in my "fitness", it doesn't really sound like Curves is for me. Maybe when I'm thinnner and more fit that I can keep up on the machines there and actually "sculpt" my body instead of needing to build up cardio and exercise tolerance, it might be for me.

It's too bad though. They are so close.

There is another fitness place that is about 2 blocks from me. And I looked it up but it's "extreme" fitness for professional athletes.

There is also a "club" across the small park from me. About 1 block from where I live. But it's not just a gym. There are bankquet halls, squash and raquet courts, a restaurant, a lounge and a gym. Not sure about a pool. The cost is $100 per month for one person, $300 for 2 I think. And a family is amost $500 per year. In addition to the monthly fee you have to spend $150 on food and beverages every 6 months. If you don't you have to pay the $300 food and beverage charge in one lump sum.

So I definitely can't afford that place!!

I was a member at two differnent Curves, both of them were very rude to me and that's why I ended up leaving both Curves. Long story short both locations told me I was too "skinny" to work out and I didn't belong at Curves. It got really old hearing someone make a comment everyday that I didn't belong there. I had gained 20lbs and wanted to shed those pounds. Apparently there's a limit as to how "thin" you can be to work out at Curves

As for the membership....the sign up fee is horrible and they make you sign a contract, if you break the contract you have to pay a fee, otherwise you have to keep paying them every month. If you wait, they have deals and sign up is free, that's what I did both times I joined.

I am lucky Shirley at the Curves I go to is very nice. I do have to skip two machines though because my fibro and arthritis. I have severe Asthma and I can do Curves. There are people that have canes that go there and some are 400 pounds. I go when there are not alot of people and almost always get the machne I want. I do the smart machines which has a card so no one can push me ot if I am not done. Its not the same as doing it with no card. You go as fast or slow as you want.

Originally Posted by EnzoLeya

As for the membership....the sign up fee is horrible and they make you sign a contract, if you break the contract you have to pay a fee, otherwise you have to keep paying them every month. If you wait, they have deals and sign up is free, that's what I did both times I joined.

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Oh yeah. I forgot. I think she said that the cancellation fee is equal to $10.00 per month of whatever is left on your contract. So for example if you have 5 months left, if you cancel you have to pay them $50.00.

She mentioned something about a "membership" hold so that if you get sick and need to put your membership on hold for a month or two you don't lose any time. I think she said to do that is an additional $10.00 per month over your $49.00 per month that you are already paying.

At the Wellness where I am if I have to put my membership on hold I don't have to pay anything extra and in fact they don't bill me for the months I can't go and my time is extended by that length of time. And I'm not tied into a 12 month contract. I can cancel at any time without penalty. The signup for the Wellness is also only $89.00 which I didn't have to pay because I was in their Cardiac Rehab Program and already a member. I just switched from the program to general membership so there was no further paperwork or assessment required.

I just really wish there was a gym closer to where I live. I'm downtown you would think there would be something. There is the YMCA, but I've been there and don't like it at all. I feel so uncomfortable there. I've never seen anyone heavy working out. Everyone seems so young, fit and tanned. I just feel I'm being leered and jeered at.

Back in the 1980's there was a chain of gyms called "The European Health Spa." I had a lifetime membership and I used to go almost every single day. I absolutely loved it. They had 2 locations right downtown too. So very close to me even though I wasn't living downtown back then. But they've closed up. It was great. They had aeoribics, a gym, pool, whirlpool, sauna. The one thing I didn't like about the one I went to was that it was co-ed. The co-ed wasn't bad, but they had one sauna, one whirlpool, one locker room and one shower. So initially men and women were sharing the same change and shower areas. I really love the whirlpool, but I got fed up with guys leering at me while I was sitting in there trying to relax. They treated it as a pick up joint!

I guess they received complaints and eventually while the gym part was co-ed, the rest of the facilities were alternating days between men and women.

I'll was in one of their commercials. I'll have to try and locate the picture in google if I can. I'm sitting in the whirlpool. You can't see my face very clearly, more the side and back of me.