Arian Gym

This gym was fine — clean and tidy. It’s a bit of a tight squeeze in there, but they cram in pretty much all the equipment you would want, and it is right in the city center. The only thing I found to be missing was medicine balls. However, it is about 4 Euros more expensive (day rate) than it’s nearest rival. I guess this is because they have a pool.

Arian is a great gym, no doubts. I wouldn’t have thought of such a good sport centre in this area of Madrid. To start, the opening hours are amazing: from 7:00 to 23:00 on weekdays, 8:00 to 22:00 on Saturdays and 9:00 to 15:00 on Sundays (not in Summer, I believe). Staff are super friendly, they care a lot about how you feel, what you want to achieve, everything, and they seem genuinely interested. All the fitness equipment is quite new and in good condition, and there is plenty of machines so you don’t have to wait, even at peak times. I can’t say anything about the classes or the swimming pool, but there are plenty of different activities to choose. In my opinion, prices are quite OK for the location even cheap. You can sign up for 9 months for 330EUR, for me, having lived for 2 years in London this is a bargain. It’s true that good deals are available only if you pay minimum 3 months, but that’s the idea, I suppose. Joining a gym for less than 3 months is quite useless, so And if you just want to try it, you can always ask for a day pass before paying.

This is a little gem of a gym and it’s found right in the center of the city in the Opera neighborhood. It’s what I call a neighborhood gym. It has the look and the feel of one: the staff are friendly and helpful and the members are courteous and chipper, always offering a «hello» or «see you later», and there seems to be a general focus on fitness. I’ve never gotten that weird sense of competitiveness or pick-​up place that you might encounter in other gyms. No one seems overly concerned with fashionable workout clothes, either. The members are there to stay fit and it’s refreshing that that’s the principal concern. It’s also highly motivating.
Another plus, and this is very important in a gym, is that it is clean. And, it smells fresh without smelling overly sanitized. The womens’ locker room has ample space with plenty of lockers and sinks (with soap!), showers, mirrors, hair dryers and benches. You can rent a locker on a monthly basis or you can use one free for the day. There’s a weight room, of course, and though it’s 98% male occupancy, I feel perfectly comfortable working out in there. There’s a great variety of weight machines and they are new and well maintained. There’s a stretch room with mats and one of those giant rubber balls. And, my favorite, the music video room. Here is where my gym buddies, Beyonce, Gaga and JLo help motivate me to burn, baby, burn. And there are 6 nice elliptical machines, 6 modern running machines with incline, a couple of stationary bikes, a small Stairmaster and two tvs permanently set to music video stations on mute (whew!). 4 on the floor blares through the overhead speakers, but mostly everyone is sweating it out to their own tunes while either reading or trying to count the number of edits in an average pop video.
I have yet to check out the classes that they offer. There are two different rooms where they hold aerobic, step, pilates, kickboxing, and yoga classes. There’s also a pool, but it’s tiny. It looks nice and clean and people and kids use it, but you can’t get much of a workout doing laps. Smallness aside, it’s a nice gym. You can sign up for a month, 3 months or for a year, and the prices are very reasonable.

Dentro de la ciudad de Madrid hay un gimnasio pequeñito. Dentro de ese gimnasio hay una piscina pequeñita. En esa piscina dan clases de natación a niños pequeñitos (también a los más grandecitos).
Las clases las da un profesor grandecito que se llama Carlos. Y no he conocido a otro mejor. Pero, oooooh… hay lista de espera…, grandecita.
Ja-​ja-​ja-​ja (risa malvada) no todo iba a ser tan fácil.

Hay pocos gimnasios en la zona centro y Arian no es mala opción.
El personal es amable y en cuanto a maquinaria las instalaciones no están mal, aunque la piscina es pequeña y está condicionada por los cursos de natación para niños que se imparten algunos días de la semana.
No es barato y tiene un inconveniente a la hora de pagar: si quieres ‘librarte’ de la cuota de inscripción (que es bastante dinero, más o menos unos 60 euros) tienes que pagar inicialmente, como mínimo, 3 meses. Si se trata de probar, tres meses es demasiado tiempo, pero pagar una gran cuota para nada es tirar el dinero.