Houston is the fourth largest city in America with over 4 million people in the city.  Houston has it’s own unique culture, one of the major things is it’s gym culture.  Houston has such a massive gym culture because of it’s faster pace lifestyle, where you drive everywhere and there are not many biking lanes or sidewalks, so people are not as active. There is also a big restaurant and party culture, when you combine these factors, Houston residents gain a lot of weight.  That’s where the gyms come in, with the weight loss solutions. There are gyms on every block in Houston so it is difficult to find a gym that is right for your weight loss and toning goals.  We are going to list some of the best gyms in Houston and go through a checklist of things to help you find the best gyms for your weight loss goals.

The Best Personal Training Gyms in Houston

Creative Workouts Gym is a personal training, strength training gym that offers one on one and group classes. The gym has a lot of machines, free weights, and cardio equipment. Creative Workouts focuses on weight loss and toning up your muscles.   It has a circuit training style exercise, which will make sure you develop all your major muscles.  It also offers a beginner’s class for those that are not very comfortable with weights.  They offer nutritional plans, which comes with accountability.  The gym has a full body cardio and strength class, booty and belly class and kickboxing class.  The variety of classes allow you to never be bored and always have engaging exercises to keep your mind active and your muscles strong. The gym has a positive, and encouraging community, where you will meet good friends.  The staff at the gym is always professional, knowledgeable and friendly.  All questions will be answer to make sure you are on the correct path to reach your weight loss fitness goals. 

These are some of the best big gyms in Houston

What You Should Look for in a Gym

Strength Program

Does the gym have a good strength program? Building muscle allows you to raise your metabolism, which causes your body to burn more fat, resulting in weight loss.  It doesn’t take a lot of fancy equipment to have an effective strength program. The majority of big gyms have lots of gym equipment, while most smaller gyms have less equipment, but more instructions i.e personal training.  If you know how to build strength without the need of assistance, then big gyms have plenty of equipment for you to put together a great strength program for yourself. If you need assistance you will need to go to a personal training gym that has good equipment and comes with a personal trainer who will put together a good fitness program for you. 

Nutritional plan

In order to really lose weight, you need to have a solid nutritional plan.  You need to consistently eat healthy.  Most of the big gyms do not give you meal plans, but some of the smaller personal training gyms do give you meal plans.  A step above giving a meal plan is holding you accountable with what you are eating, and also helping you find solutions to your eating problems.  You will need to find the right personal training gym, to solve these problems.

Accountability

One of the major reasons you are having a problem with weight loss, is because you are not consistent in the gym, and one of the major reasons for a lack of consistency is a lack of accountability. It is important to have some type of accountability so that you can develop discipline. Many big gyms only care if you sign up, but after that you are on your own, some gyms will reach out to you, if you haven’t shown up in the gym.    In the smaller personal training gyms, some have a strong accountability system while some do not have any accountability system.  So a good accountability system is something you should look for.

Variety of exercises

Having a variety of exercises is important because you do not want to get bored and you want to challenge your muscle. You will not get toned muscles, if you don’t challenge them.  If you are consistently getting stronger, you will lose more weight because your metabolism has risen.  Big gyms do not have exercise programs they put together for you, some of the big gyms do have small group classes, which has limited exercise variety.  Many personal training gyms offer group classes which have a variety of exercises,  but that is something you need to ask the individual gyms.

Social Gym Culture

The social culture of a gym is important, some gyms people are highly encouraging, some gyms are hype, some gyms ignore you, some gyms operate in cliques.  Most big gyms operate in cliques, or they ignore you, because everybody is on their own program and it’s up to you to create your own social circle. In the smaller, personal training gyms, it is more expected that people are more personable and more encouraging, you are more likely to make a friend, or meet a cool associate. In a good personal training gym you will find motivation in other people because most of the people are fighting to reach the same goal of weight loss, and/or have reached their goal of weight loss.

Prices

In the big gyms the prices are cheap, $10 to $30 per month.  They have a lot of equipment and it’s up to you to create your own weight loss program.  If you decide to get a personal trainer in the big gyms, then the prices rise up considerably, in the range of $700 to $1000 a month.  For the smaller, personal training gyms, prices are usually in the range of $60/month to $150/month.  In the personal training gym, you get a structured exercise routine, with modifications to fit your fitness level.  If you want to get additional 1 on 1 personal training at these gyms they are usually in the price range of $200 to $500. 

The final conclusion is you need to have a open mind when it comes to finding the right gym for you, but you need to also ask the right questions so that you will not have to waste your money and time, because you missed obvious things that the gym was missing.