Fit4less Highbury

Like this gym a lot! The space is light, modern and attractive, and recently upgraded. Equipment is all modern and mostly looks new. But just as important, or more so, are the people. The staff are young, very friendly, without any «attitude» at all and very happy to help.

on a friends recommendation i downloaded a free guest pass from their website (you can still do this i think) and now I’ve been going for the last two months and think for the price (20 pounds a month people!) and the fact you dont have to sign up for an annoying 1 year contract — it’s pretty amazing. it also opens at 6:30am which i love as i can cram in a proper workout before work, and is close to holloway road tube. plus classes — which i probably use a bit more than the gym are great. they have zumba, yoga and pretty punishing circuit classes. yes it’s not the the most fancy place and the changing rooms are pretty basic but I’d prefer that to paying a fortune for my work out.

I tried a free guest pass at this gym after my former gym, FitSpace near Holloway Road station, outrageously increased the price of annual membership by 50% for 2015. When I called FitSpace to complain, they said that it was to «keep up with other gyms in the area.» Fit4less opened in the past year and is only a few blocks away so it seemed to be the natural competitor. Unfortunately, I was very disappointed with my gym experience and I do not think it is worth it to join.
For starters, the venue is much smaller than that of FitSpace. There is one row of treadmills (about 6 of them) whereas FitSpace has two. It also only has 3 rowing machines, whereas FitSpace has about 6, and on top of that 2 of them were broken and didn’t provide any real resistance. There are only 3 showers in the womens changing room, whereas FitSpace also has 6. And there are definitely not enough mats for core exercises — there are only 4 and they are all in one cramped space. I would say that FitSpace has close to 10 mats.
It’s also unfortunate that on the treadmills and the bikes, you are looking at the wall instead of out the window like at FitSpace. It was January but almost every machine was full and I had to queue to get a chance on the rowing machines and several of the weight machines. Another thing to note is that you have to bring your own lock to use the lockers, whereas at FitSpace it operates just on a pound coin that you get back. The showers were gross and didn’t drain all the soap out, so I would definitely only enter with flip flops. To make matters worse, the water was lukewarm and the water pressure was terrible.
I think the one thing this gym has going for it is that the classes appear to be free and they are held in a separate room, whereas at FitSpace they cost 5 pounds, there is not much of a selection, and it is just held in the general exercise area. But for someone just looking to work out on their own, this is a terrible gym. The two now charge the same price for monthly, as I guess FitSpace looked at this inferior gym and wondered why they couldn’t charge more for their better amenities. Finally, to try and end on a positive note: instead of a gym pass, Fit4less uses a fingerprint reader — that is pretty cool.