philly: 12th St Gym

January 23, 2006

12th St Gym

I've been a member of 12th St Gym since I bought a membership in March of 2005. I bought it off of a lady via craigslist. It is an incredible gym. The following is more of a roundup than a review.

Spread through eight floors and 60,000 square feet are rooms for every part of your body, a lap pool, sun deck [where they have sunrise yoga], cardio rooms, class exercise rooms, sauna and a common area where there's a big screen, tables, ping pong and a health bar. They have over thirty personal trainers available throughout the week.

When I go in, I usually head straight to the cardio room, specifically, the room with the nice treadmills hooked up to TVs and sound system [the cardio theater]. You can plug in your headphones into a module on the treadmill to listen to one of the eight or so TV programs overhead or bring a CD and listen to it through the group sound system. You can scan through what everyone else is working out to as well. There are two über nice treadmills at the back of the room. Very hard to snag those.

Then it's downstairs to do a circuit of weights. They boast the largest Hammer Strength circuit in the area. I hit a circuit of arms/upper back or chest/lower back or legs. I also like to head over to the stomach room to hit the obliques on the upright machine.

I've never been one for cardio classes, but Lady's liked some of the yoga/pilates classes [she's also a member]. I've never been out on the sun deck nor in the pool nor the sauna.

And there are perks that come with the membership too. Like 10% off at City Sports. Discounts to a featured restaurant each month [usually 15% off the food portion of the meal] - last month it was Davios. A 15% off discount at Gaskill House, a bed and breakfast around South/3rd Sts. A 10% discount at All Occassions flowers on South/10thSts. Discounts to local theater shows. And there's even a dentist offering 10% off all fist time visits services to members.

My favorite perk is their referral program. When a member referrs a new patron, the newbie gets 50% off their initiation fee which is either $50 or $100 depending on their promotion. And the referrer gets dinner for two at a great local restaurant. Lady's former roommate joined and we got dinner at Valanni, the single best meal we've had in Philly. And when Lady's membership expired and she joined again, and we dined out at La Fourno for another great meal. This month, the dinner for two is at Caribou Cafe.

Another great feature is their full lenght basketball court. It gets pretty busy in there. Haven't laced up the hoops kicks in forever, but one of these days, I'm gonna bring my ball which I brought back from NY and shoot around a bit during off hours. It always seems packed though. They have the nice plexiglass backboards too.

And if you're into tanning, they also have their own tanning salon, Soleil. Fake burning's not my bag.

There are buses on Walnut, Locust, 12th and 11th Sts. The PATCO is right on Locust St as well. I'm not sure if there's a garage nearby for cars, I don't look out for them anymore. They do have tons of bike racks, several in view in the shot above. And they have another good sized bike rack inside for when it's nasty outside.

So if any of this sounds good, I very much urge you to take a trip over to 12th St between Walnut and Locust Sts and take a tour. If you like what you see, use me as a referrer. Money saved for you, free eats for me! If anyone has any questions, please feel free to ask away.

12th st gym