Blood Pressure Blog

Working out has been a staple for me since I was 16 – I learned to bench on a rusted slab of metal in our high school basement that looked like it gave King Tutankhamun a fatal dose of tetanus. Since then, I’ve been fortunate to work out in a wide array of gyms, from old powerlifter gyms, corporate campuses, commercial gyms, and even muscle beach. Don’t get me wrong, I believe certain types of gyms cater to certain types of people, but I value a non-frills approach. However, there stands one fitness center that’s always eluded me…

Well actually make that two – Planet Fitness. It’s been a life dream/bucket list item for me to have the lunk alarm go off on me… and be subsequently kicked out as a result.

Equinox is a place that’s always been a ‘go once, never again’ sort of thought. I was always against the idea of going, playing into the stereotype that their members are likely those without a single athletic bone in their body who got picked last in gym class. Regardless, I recently bit the bullet and got a day pass to Equinox Palo Alto.

Aaaaaannnnd I paid $100 for a day pass… just to spend like 2 hours there. Not worth my money for sure, but mostly for one-time experience that looked like it came directly out of the Flatiron District.

Equinox Palo Alto is probably the nicest gym I’ve ever been to – and that’s not a complement. Equinox might be the only gym in America where the more you go, the less tough you get. And this is for real – they hand everyone a towel soaked in eucalyptus oil giving more spa vibes than gym. Regardless, I was smelling like a Koala’s rear-end by the end of my workout, not really feeling any different.

If running on the treadmill or squatting ever became purely a vibes sport like baseball or golf, then Equinox would transform into a high-performance training facility. The vibes are absolutely immaculate. The equipment inside is no different than my local LA Fitness, but has a dedicated deadlift area, something I actually appreciate.

So far Equinox seems like a pretty sick place right? Wrong. It couldn’t be further from the truth. The thing that messes it up – the members.

Equinox is no different than those ‘Hall of mirrors’ amusement park child abandonment ponzi-schemes. The place is plastered in mirrors everywhere, and subsequently with people of above-average attractiveness taking pictures of themselves in athleisure. Seriously, Equinox should just hand you a few thousand followers on social as a signing bonus for the $250/month fee. And the influencer lifestyle doesn’t just end there – they’ve succumbed to the ‘Buy my merch’ school of business and marketing by bombarding you with their own promotional material and apparel immediately on entry.

Let me put it this way, the people that go to Equinox replace the word ‘gym’ with ‘Equinox’ in their own personal lexicon. I think the gym is a sacred place, temples to the gods of gains – Quad-zilla and Tri-ceratops. People treat Equinox, on the other hand, like a bar, with guys hitting on girls, congregating around the smoothie bar, and throwing up in bathrooms from pre-workout caffeine poisoning. My expectation for a place like this with a steep fee would be to have a strict code of conduct. For comparison, Planet Fitness, one of the cheapest gyms out there, has the lunk alarm to keep people in check. However, price doesn’t stop people from wasting their lives by hanging upside down on the pull-up bars while having a full-ass conversations about their latest round of Botox or their bosses being a prick.

As the final verdict, Equinox is just Lululemon that hired a personal trainer. Is it a lifestyle brand, yes. Is it expensive, yes. Is it the same as every commercial gym in the US, yes. Equinox doesn’t move the needle for me, I’ll be sticking to my own local gym.