Future Equinox Member? NOT!

Well, it didn’t exactly have my name on it – but they got my unit number right – so I’ll take being addressed as “Future Equinox Member” personally. I’m good with it. Other than the fact that I’m not a “Future Equinox Member.”

Not that I shouldn’t get fitter. There’s certainly less that I can eat and more that I can do.

But so far, so good, health-wise. And I still manage to average 5 miles a day on foot.

Anyway, I’ve never gotten a flyer from Equinox before, so I’m guessing the boycott may be getting to them a tiny bit. And, in truth, if I were going to upgrade my gym, Equinox and Soul Cycle - both partially owned by a major DJT financial backer – would be way at the bottom of the list. Sure, Equinox and Soul Cycle claim that Stephen Ross has nada to do with how they run (or pedal).. But if some of their profits go out their door and briefly into the pocket of Stephen Ross before passing into the coffers of Trump 2020, well my not joining is a no brainer.

Anyway, I already have a gym.

Sure, it’s a dump, but it’s my dump. It’s friendly, cheap, low key and, while there are some beautiful young things there – mostly as PT patients, as my gym is mostly a PT facility (and runners haven) that offers fitness membership at low cost to PT alums – most of us are there wearing ratty t-shirts and beat up sneakers. No one wears makeup. No one looks groomed. Us regulars – and I have a crew of gym buds – tend to laugh a lot.

The AC is terrible, and in the winter it’s alternately freezing or broiling. Our equipment isn’t exactly glam either. We have two new ellipticals, but a lot of the gear is rundown. When it starts to fall apart, there are gerry-rigged fixes. Duck tape abounds, and I often end up with some gummy residue on my workout pants. Thank heavens for goof off!

We have a TV, which a few years back us regulars chipped in for. It’s generally tuned to either ESPN or CNN, with an occasional tune-in to MSNBC. The head guy is an unapologetic liberal. I can’t imagine anyone trying to put Fox News on.

But I’ve been going there for over 10 years now, I’ve gotten sucked into heling out with the charity founded by the guy who runs the place, and it’s something of a home-away-from-home three mornings a week.

As it turns out, my gym is on the same street as one of the Boston Equinoxes, or as a Latin purist might say, Equinoctes. And that’s about where the resemblance ends.

My gym is no one’s idea of “the epitome of elegance.” We don’t have a chandelier, spiral staircase, 18-foot windows or a vaulted skylight. But we do have balloons throughout the gym and throughout the year. Depending on whether one of “our teams” is in the playoffs, there’ll be red-white-blue (Red Sox or Pats); green for the Celts; black and gold for the Bruins. For the Marathon – and a lot of the PT clients and gym rats are serious runners – we have blue and yellow. Then there’s the obvious color schemes for Halloween, Christmas, St. Patrick’s Day, Valentine’s, the Fourth. Admittedly, the balloons for the Fourth of July this year were light pink, baby blue, and white rather than red, white and blue, so it looked more like we were setting up for a baby shower, rather than Independence Day.

And we don’t have “luxe amenities.” Our towels aren’t eucalyptus towels. In fact, they’re one step above the shower towels we hand out at the homeless shelter I volunteer at. And we don’t have Kiehl’s products. The hand soap in the ladies’ room is whatever’s on sale at CVS.

Equinox is currently waiving their $300 initiation fee (again, leading me to believe they’ve taken a bit of a hit a, even though I’ve been reading that some of those who’ve tried to take their leave have run into a lot of bureaucratic hurdles). My place doesn’t have one to begin with.

New Equinox members receive a free “propriety fitness assessment.” I’m not quite sure what a “propriety fitness assessment” might be. Fitness according to Emily Post? Do you wear white gloves and keep your pinky up while you’re being assessed? Do you think they mean proprietary? (And I will apologize for the snark. Not like I never made a typo or word-o.)

At my gym, even when you’re not in a PT program, you can get a proprietary assessment any old time from the man in charge or one of his assistants. Ask and you shall receive. My gym is completely open concept: PT-ers rub frozen shoulders with fitness members. No private rooms. We’re all in this together.

Unlike Equinox, we don’t have Tier X, which helps patrons “realize your infinite potential through lifestyle management.” And yet, I do feel that, at my gym, even those of us completely lacking in “infinite potential” are helped to realize whatever it is we got. Lifestyle management? Let’s just say every once in a while – Opening Day of the baseball season, St. Patrick’s Day, the Friday before Super Bowl – you can get a beer and a hot dog from the completely non-OSHA compliant indoor grill.

Sure, Tier X sounds good, but I’ll stack my gym’s ability to support our “unique goals, passions, and personality” up against Equinox any old time. Only we place a lot more emphasis on personality than we do on anything else.

We do, however, fall down when it comes to never letting someone ever reach a plateau. I’ve reached plenty of them, at which point it’s up to me to ask the PT guru or one of the assistants for some help. That said, sometimes they do come over and stick their noses in and make suggestions. Similar, I guess, to the trainers at Equinox, who offer “a few choice words…at the exact moment [their members] need them.”

Sorry, Equinox, but I’ll stick with my home-away-from-homies.